New prison programme connects inmates & victims
News from Hattieville prison usually comes in two varieties: bad, namely beatings and breakouts, and good, consisting of donations and rehabilitations. Today was one of Hattieville’s better days… as Jose Sanchez found out.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
The Prison Department has embarked on a new era of rehabilitation. It has instituted a three phase Victim Awareness programme in hopes that it will conclude with a peaceful meeting between inmates and victims of their crimes, so that emotional scars may begin to heal.
Kevin Cadle, Acting Asst. Superintendent Max/Medium
“This is a pilot project, the first of it’s kind to be done in Belize and in the Department of corrections. It’s a programme I brought from the California Youth Authorities and I know it worked effectively in that institution. The inmates were selected randomly and they were selected based on what they were in jail for and what they had done in jail. So I have brought a few of them together that I felt needed the programme immediately, who were leaders especially, so that they can go back and help themselves and others in the institution, so that the other inmates could be more aware of what’s going on. These people that I have selected are leaders in the institution at this time.”
Among those leaders are notorious criminals like Frank Castro, who has escaped several times, and Mark Stewart, the prime suspect in the murder and dismemberment of his cellmate.
Mark Stewart, Inmate
“I come to jail for armed robbery. I am serving a twelve-year sentence for the said crime. But since I’ve been in jail six years and a half, I thought about my whole life and my whole lifestyle, the way I’ve been living and so forth. The things that I did back then, I don’t want to do those anymore. By robbing people, stealing and taking things that are not yours, you might live with it for a minute, but then there’ll come a time when it’s going to be taken away, when the law got to be upheld.”
Frank Castro, Inmate
“I have lot of victims in society and I feel for them the say way because it’s something wrong I did to try and harm them. Right now I’m here doing fifteen years for an attempted robbery, when I attempted to rob a lady, Ms. Darlene Murphy. If she is seeing or listening, I just want to tell her sorry for what I did to her and I hope she forgives me.”
Kevin Cadle
“The programme has three phases, this is the first phase, which is eight weeks. From there they’ll be moving into another phase which has to do with school intervention and real talk shows hopefully. We plan to bring high schoolers in here and have a few of the guys talk to them and explain to them what’s going on, let them be a part of the group. Then the third phase would be wearing the purple heart bearing the victim’s name and actually being able to write a letter to the victim explaining their remorse for what they had done and that they would like for the victim to forgive them for what they have done.”
Linsberth Logan, Inmate
“I commit a case of manslaughter due to provocation. It’s been awhile, almost nine years now that I’ve wanted to apologise. This programme that they started is a good programme because you want to ask forgiveness from the victims, even if they don’t forgive you, you just feel good that you got it off your chest.”
“I just like to say moms I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened and I still don’t know yet. I asked myself everyday what happened and I’d just like to apologise to moms and to the son and the brothers and the family, even to my family because when you do crime it’s not only you that pays, it’s the whole society, the whole system, everybody.”
Marissa Quan, PR Officer, Prison Department
“In the end what we hope to achieve is an inmate that shows remorse for the crime he has committed against another person or the family of that victim. Where he will be able to have a chance to confront his victim and or their family in the event that he killed that victim. Where doing this…and a lot of people are saying why waste time on doing something like this, but the prison has been a storage for inmates for quite sometime. If we hope to achieve anything out of locking them up, we need to try to learn from them what makes them this way.”
Jose Sanchez
“The Victim Awareness Program has been underway for the past two weeks. And though some of the prisoners are ready to say they are sorry, the question still remains about whether or not society is ready to forgive them. Reporting for News 5, Jose Sanchez.”
