RALEIGH, N.C. — There are multiple paths to making someone employable once their time in prison ends in North Carolina.
The Department of Adult Corrections offers those opportunities during a prison sentence.
One program geared toward helping prisoners find work after lockup is called Correction Enterprises.
In an effort to reduce statewide rates of recidivism, the department’s Correction Enterprises allows men and women serving in state prisons the chance to work in real-world settings where goods, such as safety vests and campsite grills, are made for the public.
Brian Hamilton works hard to build off the momentum created by these state-run, offender-driven initiatives through the nonprofit organization he founded years ago called Inmates to Entrepreneurs.
“What will, can happen is you get the tools and the knowledge you need to start a low capital business. You can do that. And you can still do that in this country. Absolutely,” Hamilton said.
The program’s goal is to help the prisoners reassimilate into society and stay out of the criminal justice system.
In a women’s prison in Raleigh, on a factory floor closed to the outside world, hands move at breakneck pace alongside machinery owned by corrections department. It’s a taxpayer-fueled workforce in the North Carolina License Plate Manufacturing facility exclusively run by incarcerated women at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women.
“Is that easy or hard?” Hamilton asked as he toured the factory.
Believe it or not, Hamilton feels right at home. The wealthy entrepreneur takes easy-to-understand concepts for turning pain into prosperity beyond the prison walls. He talks with people doing hard time about how they can make a buck on their own as a self-employed free person through his Inmates to Entrepreneurs program.
“When people take our course, when they listen to us, if they don’t walk out of that room and understand how they could start their own little capital business, I failed,” Hamilton said.
A quick dive into data from a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report reveals six out of every 10 formerly incarcerated people are jobless from the time of release to four years after leaving prison.
It’s why Hamilton wants to reach the prisoners in the women’s prison. In a visit in June, he talked at length to a group of women who work in the N.C. Correction Enterprises plant.
“That’s where the juice comes from,” Hamilton said as he described his motivation to keep delivering tips to prisoners.
The plant produces every car license plate in the state.
Employees said roughly 20,000 license plates a day are made by about 60 women at any given time. They’re not only learning the manufacturing skills that employers want once they leave prison, they’re building soft skills — the ability to communicate, be reliable and accountable for their actions on a job site that make them attractive to an employer.
Latricia Taylor and Krystall Orr are serving time at prison and want the opportunity to prove they can be contributing members of society.
“I want a second chance. I made a mistake but at the same time, I’m also rebuilding,” Taylor said.“I want a second chance. I made a mistake but at the same time, I’m also rebuilding,” Taylor said. “I want to rebuild not only for myself but for my kids.” Taylor said.
Orr expressed something similar.
“Probably that, even though we are inmates, we still have an opportunity to be successful when we leave here,” she said.
Orr has been on the inside for nearly three years for trafficking heroin.
“Take one day at a time, and it is what you make it. If you are down and depressed, you can be miserable. Stay happy. Stay positive. Even though the circumstances. Just keep pushing. I can’t let it hold me back,” she said.
Taylor is locked up for discharging a firearm into occupied property and will exit these walls this month.
“Because in here, it opens the door for a dark place and if you don’t hold onto something, you’ll lose it,” Taylor said.
Hamilton said it’s why he keeps coming back to prison facilities time and again.
“I’m standing up here because I’m passionate, and I know it sounds hokey, but it’s true, about the American dream, the idea that you can make a mistake and get a legitimate second chance,” Hamilton said.
These women want their American dream, too.
“This is rock bottom. It’s OK to hit rock bottom. It’s OK to not be OK, as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward,” Taylor said.
Data from the N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission in 2021 shows 11% of formerly incarcerated people of the 12,889 prisoners released were women.
A research brief released in September 2022 showed women who participate in the Correction Enterprises Program and Work Release Programs had lower rates of recidivism than the overall rate of women released from state prisons in North Carolina.
Read on Spectrum 1 News.
