If you know Deborah Barrett, you know she’ s fiercely committed to her students.
But do you know about her history with death row? Or about her feathered friends? Or about her head-banging alter ego?
Barrett directs South Piedmont’s public safety curriculum programs, including Criminal Justice, Public Safety Administration and Forensics. In her four years with the College, the programs have grown tremendously, fueled in part by Barrett’s efforts to enroll first responders.
Around campus, she is known for working one-on-one with students, helping them to receive college credit for their prior professional experience and enhancing classroom instruction with her firsthand knowledge of the criminal justice system.
Get Barrett out of the classroom, however, and she’s more likely to talk to you about brownies, chickens, and perhaps convicted murderers.
Here are five things you probably don’t know about soon-to-be Dr. Barrett.
1) She is a former death-row case manager.
Barrett spent more than two decades in corrections, including seven years working as a case manager assigned to Florida’s death row population.
“Inmates spend many years on death row, and they have struggles just like the rest of us. Everyone deserves compassion. As a case manager, my job was to help them with their issues in order to make them more manageable inside the prison,” she said.
“Sometimes that meant getting them anger management training or getting them involved with an educational program. Sometimes that meant getting them help for mental health issues or helping them with issues they were having with their family members. I helped them come to terms with whatever they were dealing with either inside themselves or outside the prison.”
2) Her work in the correctional system shaped how she sees the world.
While most of us would like to think we’re nothing like those who are sitting behind prison bars, Barrett knows better.
“Everyone can make a bad decision. We are all just one millimeter, one drink, from our life completely changing,” she said.
“In the prison system, I saw decorated military veterans, high-achieving students, people who’d lived upstanding lives, up until that one moment when they lost their temper, they hurt someone, they got scared and did the wrong thing. I remember one young man who was in college. One night, he had too many beers, he hit a pedestrian, got scared, and left the scene. He spent 17 years in prison, and before that, he’d never even had a speeding ticket. That could happen to anyone.”
3) She owns 50 chickens. Yes, 50.
Barrett grew up in Brevard, North Carolina, “back before it had a four-year university, and a parking deck, and a Walmart,” she said. After watching the growth of her hometown and spending years working in what she describes as “noise” – in big, crowded prisons, and large cities such as Jacksonville, Florida, and Charlotte – Barrett now yearns for quiet.
She recently purchased a small farm where she keeps more than 50 chickens, plus a pair of Chinese pheasants that should start breeding in the spring.
“That’s right, I’m a crazy chicken lady,” she said.
4) She makes a mean brownie.
Barrett’s mom owned the Brevard Bakery. Maybe baking is genetic, because Barrett can often be found mixing up a sweet treat too. She’s diabetic, so she tends to favor breads and scones that require less sugar.
“But brownies are one of my specialties. It’s hard to make a bad brownie,” she said.
5) When she’s not at work, you’re likely to find her at a heavy metal concert.
Because she’s a North Carolina native, Barrett said most people expect her to enjoy country music.
“But I don’t like country at all. It’s way too sad,” she said.
“I like all the old hard rock: Korn, Five Finger Death Punch, The Ghost Inside, Metallica, Ozzy, Alice Cooper, Nine Inch Nails, The Cult.”
Bonus thing to know about Barrett: She’s studying toward her Ph.D. in Criminal Justice and Investigative Science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. It won’t be long until she is “Dr. Barrett.” Congratulations, Dr. Barrett!
Learn more about South Piedmont’s Public Safety Programs here.