GPAC meets to talk rehab
By John Joyce
Published in News on March 23, 2016 1:46 PM
Duane McKnight does not mind telling his story. He shares his past with anyone who will listen.
But McKnight's is more than a cautionary tale or a motivational speech.
His story, he said, serves as a model for those to follow who -- like McKnight, 47, did almost 20 years ago -- find themselves coming out of prison and looking for work with a felony on their record.
"You can get a job. I'm a felon. I'm an ex-convict. And I'm a plumber. I do service calls in people's homes," McKnight told a captive audience.
He was among the last to speak to a crowd of 12 probationers forced to attend a Goldsboro Partners Against Crime call-in at Goldsboro City Hall Monday night.
"But you have to tell the truth," he said.
GPAC entered its fourth year in Goldsboro, having started after the city endured 13 murders in a single year in 2012.
Then-Police Chief Jeff Stewart and Community Coordinator Capt. Theresa Chiero based the GPAC program on a High Point model which that city initiated under the umbrella of a nationally anti-violence initiative called Project Safe Neighborhoods.
Now other towns including Greenville and Elizabeth City are basing their own programs off the Goldsboro model.
Chiero said 15 probationers were scheduled to attend the GPAC call-in, but a few had scheduling conflicts.
"One had a miscommunication with their probation officer, one of them is working," she said. "And one more is in the hospital."
The dozen who did attend were first addressed by a series of community speakers, including former Wayne County Public Schools Hearing Officer Allison Pridgen, and father of a teen murdered in Goldsboro in 2008, city resident Craig Doubt Jr.
Pridgen hammered home the message that today's youth are looking up to and mimicking the behavior of the twenty and thirty-somethings assembled in the group of probationers.
Doubt asked them if they had kids and if those that did had life insurance on their children or on themselves. He then told them to get their black suits ready because if they continued on the road they are headed down, the probationers -- all of whom have records containing violent or drug-related criminal convictions -- would certainly have a funeral to go to.
"Put your child in front of you, and if you don't want it to be them, if you don't want to know how I feel every day, stop. Stop what you're doing," he said.
After the community portion, a panel of law enforcement officials and representatives of both the local and the federal judicial system entered.
One by one, representatives of the Goldsboro Police Department, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the N.C. Department of Probation and Parole, the Wayne County District Attorney's Office, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the U.S. Marshals Service delivered a stern warning. If the probationers continued to break the law, they would be vigorously investigated, prosecuted and, if convicted, would be sentenced to the maximum allowable prison term, whether federally or by the state.
When McKnight took the floor, however, he spoke with and not to the probationers. He told them his story, in brief, about being convicted for armed robbery and safe cracking and spending 10 years in a South Carolina prison.
"My daughter was six months old when I went in. She was 10 when I got out. Today she is 29 and she just got baptized last week," he said.
His message was that, although it can seem bleak when a person has a felony record and law enforcement or probation officers are constantly watching, but there is hope. But the probationers would have to chose to make a change and would have to put the work in for themselves, he said.
"You have to make the choice," he said. "They told me I couldn't get a job, but I did. "They told me I couldn't vote, but I just did a few days ago."
McKnight told the offenders -- from the perspective of someone who has been to prison and come out the other side -- they can have their rights restored, they can get an education, they can get themselves a job.
"But you have to tell the truth," he said.
After the call-in a couple of the probationers stuck around and mingled with Doubt and with McKnight.
Chiero, cleaning up after the meeting, said she was hopeful some of the message sunk in to at least some of the probationers. Then she turned around and pointed at two young men talking with McKnight. One of the men scribbled down McKnight's phone number and promised to call the next day to find out about a job.
"Two of them are still here," she said. "That's a good sign."