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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
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Undercurrents: Time Out for a Message from Jail

An inmate (right) addresses students about respect, good decisions and bad, and the realities of prison life. (Photo courtesy BOC)A regular Source feature, Undercurrents explores issues, ideas and events as they develop beneath the surface in the Virgin Islands community.

A cacophony of pounding feet, sharp commands, shrill whistles and occasional shouts emanated from the Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School gym Monday morning.

In one corner, elementary students paired off and waited their turn to go one-on-one in a run for the basket. In another corner, older, more accomplished students practiced layups, and across from them, a group worked on passing the ball.

In the center of the floor two boys did push-ups while they waited for the next instruction. The whole room was in motion, alive with energy, concentration, and promise.

The potential athletes were most of the 64 children and teens who registered this year for the Great Adventure Fundamental Basketball Camp. They signed on for six weeks of drill in dribbling, passing, shooting and team play.

But today they were about to get something extra – a visit from a small group of men and women who are serving jail time in the Virgin Islands.

Coach Wayne Harvey and staff herded the campers onto bleachers, telling them to show respect for the speakers they were about to meet.

“If you talking while they’re talking, you gonna be doing some squats,” Harvey warned. With a reference to the hard lesson the prisoners were there to convey, he added, “Tonight they ain’t gonna have no one to talk to, except maybe a cellmate.”

Wearing standard issue orange jumpsuits, the two women and three men filed into the gym. They spoke one at a time to the young people, then answered questions from them.

“I have been incarcerated for six years,” Crystal Irons told the group. “I was facing a life sentence, but I was given 18 years, for murder.

“Imagine being in a room, door locked, and you don’t get out unless somebody opens it from the outside,” she said. “A life sentence is: You don’t go home.”

Confinement and the loss of freedom that prison imposes in a variety of ways were recurring themes. So were the brutality and the lack of security.

“You’re told what to eat, what to drink, when to go in, when to go out,” said Alvin Espirit, serving time on a domestic violence conviction.

“It’s a controlled environment … Prison is a hard situation that you do not want,” said Bill John-Baptiste, a former Port Authority officer who told the students he regrets having changed his law enforcement uniform for a prison jumpsuit. “You have to ask for everything” – a pencil, writing paper, toilet paper, everything.

And it’s dangerous, he said. “When you get there, may the best man win. That’s how prison is.”

Laura Edge agreed. “It is survival of the fittest every day,” she said. “It makes you wish you hadn’t done what you did.”

On a softer note, she said the ride over to the school was a treat, because it gave her the chance to see the ocean and a blue sky. “Those are the things you give up when you go to prison.”

A student wanted to know about time off for good behavior.

“That’s why they chose us (for the speakers bureau) because of good behavior,” said Rudette Christopher, who said he’s serving time because he stabbed someone.

“I made a bad decision,” he said, and advised the students that if they make similar bad decisions, “this is what you coming to.”

“You make a mistake, you may pay for it for the rest of your life,” said John-Baptiste. “Every time you get in a conflict, it doesn’t have to be physical.”

Responding to another question about racial bias in convictions and incarceration, John-Baptiste said law enforcement officers may well react differently to a group of whites than to a group of blacks, but “it’s not the system, it’s our people. It’s how we see ourselves.”

How you walk, dress and carry yourself sets a tone, and respect is something that is earned, he told the student.

Regardless of race, he cautioned that an infraction early in life can mark a person for years, making police watch the offender more closely. “Once you get into the system, it’s very hard to get out.”

Similarly, Irons noted, “Trouble’s so easy to get into, and so hard to get out of.”

Juel Anderson, public relations officer for Corrections, said the bureau is bringing the speakers to a number of youth camps this summer.

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