North Carolina’s prison system is stretched thin, and one of its former inmates says he has a bold way to ease the pressure. Kerwin Pittman, who spent more than a decade in state custody, has bought the shuttered Wayne Correctional Center in Goldsboro and plans to turn it from a place of punishment into a hub for people coming home from prison. His idea lands at a moment when the state’s corrections network is grappling with staff shortages, unpaid bills and closed beds.
What he bought and what he wants to do
Pittman paid $275,000 for the 19 acre, roughly 80,000 square foot Wayne Correctional Center and closed the deal after the state’s Council of State signed off, according to North Carolina Health News. He is calling the project the Recidivism Reduction Campus and envisions housing for about 200 to 250 people at a time, along with workforce training tracks, mental health support and case management built around a six month stabilization program. Pittman has said he raised the purchase money from foundations and fellowships and expects renovations to run into the millions as he removes security fencing and converts open dorms into private rooms.
Statewide staffing and budget crunch
The campus concept arrives as the Department of Adult Correction confronts some grim numbers. Secretary Leslie Cooley Dismukes told WUNC News that the system has roughly 4,600 correctional officers on the job but needs about 9,600, a gap of roughly 5,000, and that the agency is about $100 million behind on its bills. “Without having a budget, we just cannot keep up,” Dismukes said, warning that low pay and mandatory overtime are pushing officers out and forcing some units to close or operate at reduced capacity.
Why advocates say the campus could matter
Supporters argue that Pittman’s model could cut both recidivism and long term costs. An April 2024 report from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission found that 44 percent of people released in a sampled group were re arrested within two years, and state reporting shows it costs more than $54,000 a year to house one person in a state prison. Advocates say a concentrated reentry campus that offers housing, industry certifications and on site health care in one place could help keep people from cycling back into custody and ease the load on existing prisons, according to North Carolina Health News and data from the Sentencing Commission.
Practical hurdles and timeline
Turning a former prison into a reentry campus will not be simple or cheap. WRAL notes that the property sits in a designated flood plain, which officials say helped drive down the sale price, and Pittman has not laid out a detailed construction schedule, though he has said he hopes to start repurposing the site in the spring. To get off the ground and stay open, the project will need steady fundraising, employers willing to hire and train participants, and a sustainable operating plan at the same time the state is wrestling with broader corrections budget problems.
Local reaction and next steps
So far, local and state officials have largely treated the proposal as a welcome experiment. Goldsboro City Council member Brandi Matthews told reporters that a centralized reentry campus could “create more continuity and less chaos,” and departmental leaders said proceeds from the sale can be reinvested to upgrade other facilities, as reported by WFAE. Pittman says people still inside are already reaching out and that the campus will be designed with heavy input from those with lived experience. Advocates add that the real test will be whether the ambitious idea can be funded and staffed at scale while North Carolina’s corrections system navigates a deeper crisis.
