This story originally published online at NC Newsline.
With the recent purchase of the former Wayne Correctional Center in Goldsboro, Kerwin Pittman is laying claim to an unusual title—he says he’s the first formerly incarcerated person in the U.S. to purchase a prison.
Pittman, the founder and executive director of Recidivism Reduction Educational Program Services, Inc. (RREPS), was sent to prison at age 18 and served 11 years and six months for conspiracy to commit murder. January 26 will mark eight years since his release and return to the Southeast Raleigh community in which he was reared.
“I started a nonprofit when I came home and began advocating for individuals coming out of the [incarceration] system but I also put in programming to try to help them reintegrate into society with a little more ease,” Pittman said.
His experience behind bars gave him insight into what other formerly incarcerated individuals needed after they left prison.
“I had family support, so I had housing, but a lot of my friends didn’t have any place to go. Or if they did, there was a time limit on how long they could stay,” Pittman said.
Pittman’s purchase of the abandoned, 400-bed prison is an extension of the work he started soon after he left prison. He plans to create re-entry housing and a workforce campus where formerly incarcerated people can attain job skills or industry certifications.
“The campus would be like a stabilization phase for guys coming out of jail or prison, to give them a six-month pause so they can get their life back on track,” Pittman said.
Pittman estimates it will take up to two years to get the former prison ready for as many as 300 residents who would live on the campus until they completed the six months-long program. Another class of up to 300 would replace the previous residents each six months, he said.
He envisions residents studying and training to become electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, construction workers and other trades that are in high demand.
“Right now, not only in the United States, but particularly North Carolina and particularly rural North Carolina, they are experiencing a decline [in people] seeking trade jobs,” Pittman said.
Other residents might choose a track to earn industry certifications or a Commercial Driver’s License, he said.
The program will be open to previously incarcerated individuals from across the state, Pittman said.
“We’ll take referrals, we’ll have a case management team that go inside the jails and prison … and then we’ll go and see if the candidate is the best fit for our program,” Pittman said.
Pittman said it would make sense to locate such a facility in Goldsboro even if the former prison wasn’t available.
“Goldsboro is suffering right now with the plague of not only violence, but also poverty,” Pittman said. “It only made sense when this institution came up for sale to purchase it because of all of the other things that are going on in Eastern North Carolina, but also in that area.”
Pittman said he bought the former prison for under a million dollars and projects it will take about $2 million to refurbish it, while taking care to ensure it no longer looks like a prison. Pittman will rely heavily on private donations to fund the enterprise but has not ruled out pursuing local, state or federal funding.
The prison closed in 2013 as North Carolina sought to save money by reducing prison capacity after inmate populations declined.
Wayne County Commissioner Bevan Foster had not heard about the project but was excited after a reporter shared the news.
“If he’s able to do what he said he’s gonna do, it’d be great,” Foster said. “It’s the kind of program we need.”
Foster noted the irony of the prison being repurposed to help formerly incarcerated individuals.
“They’re using it for some good,” Foster said. “It would be a great thing.”
Wayne County Commissioner Antonio Williams also had not heard about Pittman’s proposal but said it would be a “wonderful opportunity” for people leaving prison.
“You can look around and see a lot of people who have been rehabilitated, but they come home and it’s challenging for them to even have housing, it’s challenging for them to find a job,” Williams said.
Many formerly incarcerated individuals return home to find that relatives or other loved ones have died or they’ve just lost those relationships while they were away and don’t have any place to go, Williams said.
“Pittman’s proposal, he said, “would definitely give them a chance to rejoin life and get the basic steps in order such as finding jobs, housing and health care, all of those things that are valuable and have meaning.”
As NC Newsline previously reported, a year ago, Pittman launched the state’s first mobile reentry service center to bring resources and support to people reentering society from prison. He followed up with a second mobile center six months later.
The centers provide previously incarcerated people with case management and other services such as job placement, housing assistance, mental health support and help obtaining important documents such as identification.
Pittman said the time he spent behind bars fuels his passion to help others.
“Me going into the system young, getting in trouble and being able to come out on the other side of that—and to be honest, just following my spirit and God leading the way—it made me want to be able to help other people,” Pittman said.
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