SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) - In the Somerset barbershop, spray bottles are lined beneath large mirrors reflecting dozens of men sitting in chairs for a snip or a shave. A colorful mural depicting the history of barbering covers the upper wall, and tunes flowing out of a nearby radio blend with low conversation.
A bell rings and the freshly cut men change their barber uniforms and smocks for another matching outfit: maroon jumpsuits with D.O.C. lettered across the backs before exiting the guarded room.
The State Correctional Institution in Somerset, like all but one prison in the state, houses a barber school, which prison officials consider one of the Department of Correction’s most successful vocational programs.
Last year these state prisons facilitated the instruction of 36 new barbers and eight instructors in Pennsylvania. Such a license, which has recently become more accessible for those in prison, allows the men to take over a barber chair or even their own shop immediately upon their release. Outside of prison, this group of ex-convict Pittsburgh barbers has become a community of sorts, where the men help one another restart and rebuild.
“Most shop owners out there know a guy who comes out of a prison barber shop is highly skilled,” Alan Cotroneo said of his students, who practice on all types of hair to complete the mandatory 1,250 hours of training before taking an exam.
Cotroneo, who has been an instructor in the state’s prison system for almost three decades, said this often makes his students highly sought after.
The Greensburg native who started as a self-employed barber said his family didn’t take too warmly to his applying to work in a prison back in 1988.
“Those guys could have sharp scissors and might kill you or something,” he recalled his family warning him.
“I didn’t listen to them, and I’m glad I didn’t,” he said with a chuckle.
After 25 years at SCI Greensburg, Cotroneo was moved briefly to SCI Pittsburgh until its closure this year. In June he was transferred to Somerset.
Cotroneo put about 30 barbers and 30 barber managers through the program over the years. He said many have kept in touch with him after prison, and many now own their own businesses thanks to their barber manager’s licenses.
A call to ministry
For the Rev. Earl Baldwin, of Beechview, the job of a barber is a spiritual one.
Rev. Baldwin described his younger self as clueless and hard-headed, a product of the streets, when he met Cotroneo at SCI Greensburg in 1991 after being convicted of multiple robbery charges.
“He saw my hunger and invited me to come down to the barbershop to learn the tricks of the trade, of the profession, and I went on and got my barber license,” Rev. Baldwin recalled. “He helped me when I was young and dumb and didn’t have a clue.”
Years later, Rev. Baldwin is striving to be a similar mentor by offering up a place of refuge to the community’s youth.
In 2010, he opened Hallelujah Anyhow Gospel Talk Barber Shop on East Ohio Street. Though the building housing his North Side shop recently closed, Rev. Baldwin now has a chair at the back of Jalen’s Barber Shop on East Ohio Street.
It’s not uncommon to find a boy occupying one of Rev. Baldwin’s chairs set up in a make-shift entertainment center, staring intently at the video game in front of him.
“I try to be a light where I’m at to keep someone’s kid from going through what I went through,” said Rev. Baldwin, who had a few prison interludes when he was younger.
The owner of Top Notch Styles later took Baldwin in as an apprentice.
Baldwin calls his shop a safe place for young people to get off the streets and even make a few bucks sweeping for him.
But he isn’t one to stay off the streets himself.
Rev. Baldwin spent the evening of Aug. 8 standing in the center of a crowd of about 250 people in Perry South, urging them to take responsibility for helping to raise the young men in the community. He invited any men present to his shop later in the week to talk.
“We need a strength that is greater than our own right now,” said Rev. Baldwin, who previously lost his brother and stepson to gun violence. “I’m getting tired of meeting out here. These black men and women are more than balloons and candles.”
After the vigil, Rev. Baldwin stood in a grassy area near where the body of a young mother had been found two nights before. He threw a football back and forth with a young boy from the crowd.
This, he said, is where the community must start reaching out to young men. Vigils and the barber shop.
“God saw my heart and blessed my hand with a gift,” he said later in his shop, holding an electric razor up. “If you want to know who the kids trust, ask who cuts their hair.”
A second chance
“If you’re going to do anything while you’re incarcerated, it’s get your barber’s license,” Steven, who is also an inmate at the Somerset prison, recalls a friend advising him years ago.
So he did. In fact, he went one step further, obtaining his manager’s license under the supervision of Cotroneo.
Steven, whose last name the Department of Corrections requested not be disclosed, was a student in a previous state prison barber program who is now working as a barber at SCI Somerset.
Before being incarcerated in 1997 Steven was a masonry contractor. The now 46-year-old knew he needed to find a trade that could last him into his later years.
He decided that barbering was his life’s calling.
But for Steven, who was convicted of murder, the journey through the program wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped because of the violent crime in his past.
In 2014, the Department of State began requiring criminal history be submitted as part of the application process. Licenses could be denied based on felony convictions or misdemeanors related to the barbering profession.
This meant individuals, like Steven, who had already completed all of his hours, were unable to be approved to test right away for a manager’s license.
“What it was doing was it was stockpiling a lot of inmates already in the program with violent cases. . They could not test,” Cotroneo said of the requirement change.
So Steven took the matter to court, arguing that because his crime has no affiliation with barbering, and because he had matured significantly in the past two decades, he should be allowed to test for the license.
After a year of arguing his case in court from prison, and even getting a corrections officer to speak on his behalf, Steven was eventually granted a provisional manager’s license.
Ian Harlow, commissioner of the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, said the barber board has always taken criminal histories into account.
“At no time did a criminal history ever outlaw you from licensure,” said Harlow. “We treat every applicant on a case-by-case basis.”
Harlow said in the past few years rumors have circulated that no one who is or was incarcerated could get a barber’s license. This, he said, was false, as it is not the intention to punish someone twice for the same crime.
This is why late last year the barber board came up with probationary licenses — as opposed to an unrestricted license — to allow those with prison records the chance to receive their license upon a review of their crime and progress in prison. The probationary license allows the licensees to practice their craft, reducing the chance of reoffending by giving them the chance to work. It also allows the board to monitor the licensees and take action should they reoffend or otherwise present a danger to the public’s health or safety.
Steven’s minimum sentence was up in August, at which time he met with the parole board. Though he is still awaiting a decision about his sentence, he’s hopeful his good behavior and diligence in the barber program will aid in his early release.
“I can only keep what I have by giving it away, and that’s what I’m trying to do,” Steven said. “I’m trying to give away what I’ve been so freely given, and I believe that’s going to make me a better person in the end.”
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Information from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, https://www.post-gazette.com
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