Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Convicted murderer Earl Pratt chats on his cellular phone as he walks away from the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre yesterday. Pratt was released on parole after serving 30 years of a death sentence that was commuted to life imprisonment. - Norman Grindley/ Deputy Chief Photographer

PRISON, in any language, is not a pleasant place. Just ask Mark, who is awaiting his turn to face the Parole Board, or James, who on Friday morning, walked out a free man after more than 20 years behind bars.

"Prison is rough, the worst place for anyone to be," Mark tells The Sunday Gleaner.

James says it is the "last place a young man can find himself."

Unlike Mark, James was preparing to bid a final goodbye to life behind bars when we spoke.

"From mi get di news Thursday, mi just nuh have nuh appetite. Mi just can't wait. Mi overwhelmed with joy and as mi reach outside, mi a go talk to di youths an mek dem know seh prison a nuh some weh fi come," he tells The Sunday Gleaner.

James, 48, left prison after almost 23 years for a murder which he was found guilty of committing and for which he was sentenced to hang.

Sorry for the deed

Mary Lynch raises her hands in triumph after being released from the Fort Augusta Correctional Centre in St. Catherine. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Mark, meanwhile, plans to apply for parole before year-end. He has already spent 13 years behind bars - also for murder - but says he wants a chance to show the world that he is sorry for the deed he has done, and that he has been rehabilitated.

If his parole hearing is successful, Mark plans to go into the world of graphic designing, an art he learned behind bars. For now, however, he has to concentrate his energy on joining that long line of persons who are waiting for the parole board to determine their fate.

More than 300 persons are parolees-in-waiting at the island's maximum security prisons. Six were released last week, including Earl Pratt, a part of the infamous Pratt and Morgan duo; Mary Lynch; and, McOrdie Morrison, whose 2004 Supreme Court ruling Major Richard Reese, the commissioner of corrections, says has contributed to the current backlog of cases before the Parole Board.

Because of the Morrison ruling, persons whose death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment got a shot at parole.

Despite the vast number of persons facing the Parole Board, there is no guarantee that these people will all be made free. The Parole Act forcefully sets out how a person becomes eligible for parole. Such persons must also satisfy a battery of tests and evaluation of both their behaviour inside the prison and their mental state in order for the board to gauge their readiness to be reintegrated into society.

Major Reese says that there is a 99.9 per cent compliance rate among parolees and this, he says, speaks to the comprehensive nature of the parole process and excellent selection decisions by the board.

"We are mindful of the trust and confidence that the public places in the Department (of Corrections) and we are very careful to ensure that we maintain such trust and confidence," Major Reese says.

Process takes too long

Among the many criticisms of the prison parole system is that the process takes too long. It should normally take six months to have cases heard. Major Reese says the period has gone down from 24 months to between 12 and 18 months these days. He blames the length of processing on a huge backlog and notes that staff is stretched because these are the same persons that constantly evaluate the more than 150 persons, who, because of their mental state, are deemed unfit to plead.

"What we have been doing is clearing the backlog. We would have improved further had it not been for these cases that were added to our assignment, and the unfit to plead," he tells The Sunday Gleaner.

Another of the criticisms mounted by some prisoners is that there are not enough mechanisms in place to determine if a prisoner is properly rehabilitated.

Mark, for example, feels strongly that Major Reese and his team should rekindle a programme where they are allowed to give testimonials to youngsters in schools to prevent them from turning to "badness". Such a programme existed before one prisoner absconded and it was abandoned. Back in those days, Mark says, students normally turned over all sort of weapons and implements to him whenever he told his chilling life story - that of a boy who got into bad company, owning six guns at age 17 and robbing and tormenting people.

"I don't want them to do what I have done. We need to save the youths and it can be done. They just need somebody to talk to them," he tells The Sunday Gleaner.

Like James, who is headed to rural Jamaica to earn from the skill he learned behind bars, prison has given Mark a new chance. He only learned to read while on death row. During this time, his friends and cronies on the outside were being killed, one by one.

"They are all dead now," Mark says. He is convinced that prison saved him from almost certain death and has given him a chance to look deeply into himself. Today, he yearns not only for freedom but also the chance to appeal to Jamaica's young men not to make the mistakes he made.

Names changed.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com