NC: Ex-inmate buys prison to offer housing and job training for others

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Source: goodnewsinstead.com 

At just 18, Kerwin Pittman found himself facing the challenges of life behind bars due to a conspiracy to commit murder. However, after spending 11 and a half years incarcerated, including a year in solitary confinement, he emerged with a renewed sense of purpose. Now, eight years after his release, he is making history as the first former inmate to purchase a prison in the United States.

Following his release, Pittman dedicated himself to advocating for social justice, establishing the Recidivism Reduction Educational Program Services, Inc. (RREPS), a nonprofit aimed at supporting individuals who have been incarcerated in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Through RREPS, he has created a positive impact in the community, helping to reduce re-offending rates and providing a range of essential services.

Pittman has developed a variety of programs, including an anti-recidivism hotline and mentorship opportunities, along with a mobile recidivism reduction center. This innovative bus travels to those in need, offering resources for housing, employment, mental health care, and much more. The message on the bus, “Recidivism Reduction Center,” boldly represents his commitment to changing lives.

Now, Pittman is embarking on an exciting new project: the Recidivism Reduction Campus, a facility designed for housing and job training for formerly incarcerated individuals, located on…

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Contrary to what people like to believe, our past does define us. It is the lessons that we learned from those past decisions that define how we act moving forward. Here, we have a citizen who learned a lesson so deep and so meaningful that he has decided not only to turn his life around, but to help others turn their lives around, too. And all because of the lessons he learned from the consequences he suffered doing what? Making poor decisions. Decisions that were so detrimental that he ended up incarcerated for them. Instead of hiding his past, he decided to own that shit and to turn it into something productive. I am impressed, and humbled. If I can accomplish half of what he did, then I will consider myself to be a success.

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