Inmate presents a powerful message

Witherspoon Middle School students hear anti-gang program

By: Nick Norlen
   Jail, jury, or dead.
   So goes the lecture about what could happen if you join a gang.
   And while middle-schoolers hear plenty about the dangers of joining gangs, they rarely hear it from a former gang member.
   On Thursday, students at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton were visited by a New Jersey Department of Corrections’ inmate, a former gang member, as part of the Gang Awareness Prevention Program.
   Reginald Easley, a senior investigator for the Department of Corrections, opened the presentation by describing life in prison.
   He didn’t sugar coat it — close quarters, dangerous cellmates, all-day confinement.
   It all starts with getting caught up in the gangsta life, he said.
   "Although we deal with adults, we know those individuals do not start committing crimes when they are 30 years old," he said. "They didn’t wake up one day when they were 35 years old and say, ‘You know what? My life is going good so far. I’ve got two kids, a wife, a nice house — I think I’m going to become a gang member.’ It just doesn’t happen. Most of these individuals started crimes when they were 12, 13, 14 years old."
   That’s how it happened for the inmate visiting the school Thursday.
   Dressed in his prison jumpsuit, the former gang member, who requested to be identified only as an inmate, took the microphone and told his story.
   It began when he started looking up to his older cousin.
   He wanted the car, the money and the girls, so he started hanging with him.
   Then he started getting into trouble.
   His first arrest was for receiving stolen property. He didn’t learn his lesson.
   After getting shot four times and being arrested multiple times for burglary and drug offenses, he’s now serving the last two years of a 15-year sentence.
   In jail, he was placed in a special gang unit.
   "You all have detention, right?" he asked the group of nodding students. "Well, this is a totally different detention."
   Telling the students it’s nothing like "Prison Break" on TV, he described a world where someone can be your bunkmate — and fellow gang member — one day, and stab you the next.
   "Gang members, they tell you everything you want to hear. Once you get into it, it’s different — they’re against you," he said after the presentation.
   He said he enjoys talking to the students, and is motivated by the fact that he has two kids of his own.
   "At first they picked us to do it, but since I’ve been doing it, I started enjoying doing it. I feel good giving back to the community — helping the kids so they won’t walk in the places I walked in."
   When he sees the students’ faces as he’s telling them how it really is, he knows it’s sinking in, he said.
   "I see when I say certain things, they’re real surprised," he said. "They’re listening."