Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Mobile Recidivism Reduction Center is the brainchild of Kerwin Pitman, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Reduction Educational Program Services, Inc. (RREPS). The goal of the organization is to address systemic injustices and unconscious biases within the judicial system with direct and/or indirect methods, with the hope of reducing the recidivism rate in North Carolina.

“Having been incarcerated for eleven and a half years, I have been directly impacted by the system,” said Pitman. “I know the need to reintegrate back into society. That first-hand experience has given me the lens to see what does and does not work. Our one-of-a-kind Mobile Recidivism Reduction Center is designed to bring the resources directly to the communities that need it the most.”

Services include assistance with social benefits, employment, mental health, substance abuse, and housing. The mobile center also provides free Internet access, the distribution of personal hygiene products, and harm reduction supplies.

“It is critically important to take these services and implant them directly in the communities of need,” said Pitman. “The days of build it and they will come have long passed. To put a dent in the recidivism rate we have to break down the traditional barriers of having access to these services.”

Pitman said their main clientele are those who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system, but they will not turn away anyone if they haven’t been in jail or prison or have some kind of experience with the criminal justice system. “We also see those who are un-housed, suffer from substance and mental health issues,” said Pitman. “It all goes hand in hand together like one large tree with several roots.”

Based in the Raleigh-Durham area, the mobile unit, a bus that has been gutted and transformed into a mobile center, made its debut two weeks ago. It has four specialists onboard who are serving individual clients all at the same time. “We started in downtown Raleigh in an area where there were a lot of un-housed individuals, ” said Pitman. “In the first two hours, we serviced close to fifty people. By the end of the day, that number rose close to 100.”

Pitman said their goal is to add three more mobile centers by the end of the year. “We will break the state down into four regions and assign a mobile unit to each region, rotating between different cities,” said Pitman. “Until then we will be taking the current mobile center to different cities around the state. We hope to make a stop in the Washington area in the very near future.”

Pitman also serves on the State Reentry Council, which was started in 2020 by then-Governor Roy Cooper.