17 October 2005

The story that we are here to witness is bigger than Jamaica. When I was in the seventh grade, I had to deliver a speech in the local Optimist Club’s annual middle school speech competition. I spoke about disadvantaged children. The story I uncovered in preparation for that speech, the first speech I ever delivered, had a greater impact on me than anything since. I remember standing on stage, wearing nothing but my heart on my sleeve, and telling this story. A devoted teacher goes into the worst of inner city schools and brings with him hope, leadership, and love. He goes into a school without enough books, food, or even heat, and helps children who were abused their whole lives to see their own beauty and strength. He shows them what their parents had not, what society would not – their potential for greatness. And then, as a result of their own work, their own growth, the children raise themselves up. This week, fourteen years later, I have come back to that story. Finally, I am doing something more than thinking or talking about the story. This time, I am living it. I have met the characters and shared the most intimate moments with them. And this time, if I am lucky, I will have the chance to be a part of the story.

Since last night, I have needed time to sit alone and reflect. I am overwhelmed. I could barely sleep last night – despite my fatigue, nervous energy pulsed through my body as I tried to rest. I woke over and over again, each time waiting for the sky to light up. For me, the sun eventually did rise. But not for the men at GP.

Driving up to the decrepit fortress where Jamaica stores the men its society has discarded, I had no way to prepare myself for what I would see. As we walked through the main gate it became clear that GP was different from South Camp. For the first time, I saw a Corrections Officer with a rifle. He seemed awkward with his weapon. Rifles don’t suit the people of this island. Security cameras dotted “the arch” (that’s what they call the entry), recording our every move. As we were processed, we could hear the inmates inside. The sound of chaos. After dispensing with the regulatory formalities of our visit, we were collected by Mrs. Jarret, the Deputy Commissioner of Corrections. She was pleasant and cheery. She must have closed her mind and cut off her senses before entering GP – otherwise her face would have been as solemn as ours were. Mrs. Jarret took us through the facility to the prison’s band area where the SET room had been built. As we made our way through the maze of fences that divide the various sections of Jamaica’s hottest hell from each other, the inmates tracked us. Waving, shouting, reaching. Perhaps it was because we were guests of the Department, and in the company of Kevin and Amilcar, but I did not once feel threatened. I have felt more threatened walking down the streets in Baltimore. I did not feel intimidated or leered at either. Catcalls aside, the men were not disrespectful or obtrusive. I think my partners, Alex and Diane, did not feel the same as I did about this. They looked down as the men shouted. I could not help but look back at the men. I wanted to reach out to them, to do something for them.

During our short walk, Kevin pointed out some of the sections of GP that we heard about from the men at South Camp. He pointed to a brown roofed building, the last one in the compound, and told us that it was “boy’s town,” where all the men who are identified as homosexual – whether in fact they are or are not – are sent. A separate garbage heap where the castoffs of the castoffs are sent to live out their days. He also pointed out a sign that read, “Respect to all ‘MAN.’” Prisoners here do not say “men.” That word is considered evidence of homosexuality, and using it can land a man in boy’s town. Better to violate the rules of grammar than to end up in that pit.

Built during GP’s renaissance, as part of the Reverence for Life program, the band room was an oasis. And the SET room, a converted section of the band room, even more so. Kevin let the men choose the colors for the SET room so that they could have someplace pleasant to go. If you have seen the inside of GP, you know what luxuries color and cleanliness are. GP looks and smells of a cross between a refugee camp and an animal shelter. Fences, bars, decay, stench, disorder. One broken toilet per 70 men. Old two-liter Pepsi bottles to urinate in. Plastic bags to defecate in. Hell.

Today was different from the other days. SET is just starting out at GP, so there was no meeting, no congregation of strong and empowered people. No self-respect or pride among the inmates. We conducted our interviews one by one, in the presence of Mrs. Jarret and the Superintendent. Today, there were no smiles or words of inspiration. Just a hope that the men we met would survive until tomorrow.

We met with Dwayne first. Dwayne could not read, and he struggled to write his name on the consent form that Mrs. Jarret and I read to him. When I tried to speak with Dwayne before the interview, he was quiet and non-responsive. At first I thought he was just shy. Then I realized that it was something more. Dwayne was dead. After only four days in GP, his spirit was dead. He would not look at us. His eyes were yellowed and teary. He maintained focus on the ground for most of the interview. He was evidence that breathing is regulated by the autonomic nervous system. If it were not, then he would have stopped, because he had no will to live. While Almilcar readied the camera, Alex explained our purpose to Dwayne. She asked him to “be free” with his thoughts and words. He responded that in GP there was no freedom. That he could not be free, and probably never would be again. Over and over during his interview he said that the night of his crime, the night he murdered someone, he wishes that the police had shot him. He sat with us and wondered aloud why the police hadn’t had enough decency to shoot him. Better to be dead than to have GP take one’s life away. Looking at Dwayne, I realized that we were sitting in a graveyard interviewing ghosts. Swallowing hard, I focused on the importance of our project. That was all I could do to keep from crying. All of the other times I’ve felt tears well up in my eyes during this trip it was because of a combination of sadness and hope. Today, I feel only sadness. Tonight, I will turn in my bed wondering if Dwayne is still alive, or if he’s taken what remains of his life. As the rain beats down outside right now, I can’t help but wonder how it sounds to Dwayne. And whether he knows that the rain comes from a sky that has watched us, society, abandoned him. A sky that cannot contain its sorrow any longer.

We also met with Garland and Cevas today. They have both been in the prison for many years. As a consequence, they wear the badge of wisdom and acceptance we have seen over and over again inside Jamaica’s penitentiaries. They know how to conduct themselves, and they get by with activity and prayer. Still, these two are not like the men of South Camp or the women of Fort Augusta. They have no hope. Garland passes his days working as a prison tailor. Cevas plays football and reads. When asked how they stay happy inside, they both corrected us – there can be no happiness inside GP – and instead told us of how they survive. Garland was transferred from South Camp for striking another inmate during a fistfight. He said that he has experienced chest pains ever since. Medication hasn’t helped. And in the chaos and bureaucracy of the Department, diagnosis of his ailment has gotten nowhere. His chest x-rays were lost before the doctor could even examine them.

Our interviews with all three men ran short today. We were broken, without energy. We didn’t patronize them by feigning cheerfulness or excitement. And we had little to ask, though much that we wanted to say. I wanted to put my hands on their shoulders, look them straight in the eyes, and tell them that they could make it. That I believed in them. Not to give up. I wanted to hug them and let them know that people are aware of how terrible the prisons are, and that people are working to make things better. Most of all, I wanted to let them know that some people on the outside, “in society” as the ladies at Fort Augusta put it, care about them.

After we completed our interviews with the inmates, we started talking to Mrs. Jarret again. Amazingly, she was as bright and lighthearted as when we arrived. We played the game of politics and buttered her up a bit. With a little coaxing, we convinced her to grant us an interview. She loved the spotlight. She talked of how security is the Department’s most important mission. She is largely correct – without security, there cannot be rehabilitation. But security does not necessitate treating people like animals. It does not necessitate locking them in urine-scented pits. And security does not come from stripping a man of his dignity and forgetting about him. She told us that her job occupies her 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that she loves it. Nothing is holding her back, she said. I wonder then, why doesn’t she do more to make the prisons better. She told us how inmates are provided with expert medical evaluations and care, with opportunities, with rehabilitation. Perhaps she wasn’t listening to the inmates during our interviews. Maybe she was distracted or had her eyes closed during our walk to the SET room. Perhaps her 29 years in the Department have liberated her from her humanity and compassion. Whatever the case, her characterization of Jamaica’s Department of Correctional Services bore no similarities whatsoever to what we saw. What we saw was encapsulated in a phrase painted on the arch marking the entrance to the prison. In large, bright letters that were visible from the cellblock, it read, “None Will Escape.”