- NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
Major Richard Reese Commissioner of Correctional Service tours one of the correctional facilities in the island earlier this year.
Leonardo Blair, Enterprise Reporter
WHEN MIKE was a boy, he could only go to school 'once in a while.' Now Mike is 22, he is practising cursive writing - a big step for Mike who suffers from 'shortness of the head'.
It's going to be a tough fight, but squinty-eyed, slow-talking, stuttering Mike wants to get rid of the shortness he claims is in his head and he is hoping to do it right here at the Tamarind Farm Adult Correctional Centre in St. Catherine. He doesn't want to make furniture, he doesn't want to do electrical work and he doesn't want to be a tailor. "Since I am short of something in my head I feel like just work it out in the school (on the farm)," says Mike.
It is a hot Independence morning and Mike is among 243 men celebrating the holiday locked inside the fences of Tamarind Farm. More than 60 per cent of the population here are drug-offenders and there is a burgeoning community of foreign nationals in the mix.
Mike used to be a farmer and a watchman until he " 'ounded" (wounded) somebody in a fight. He was sent to the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Kingston at hard labour - "mixing mortar, carrying steel and cement." So how much time will he spend in prison?
MEDIUM SECURITY
Recently transferred on good behaviour, Independence Day, marked Mike's fourth day at Tamarind Farm. And life is not so bad because in four days Mike can now write 'join-up' (cursive).
Superintendent Albert Flynn is guiding the Independence Day tour of the medium-security prison. The guards in the sentry boxes securing the 141 acres of ground of the prison seem unperturbed. Tamarind Farm on Independence Day 2005, was just a little noisier than a monastery.
Female correctional officers are part of the detail manning the checkpoints. Supt. Flynn says it is part of a new initiative to integrate females into the once male-dominated profession.
During the five minutes it takes to clear security, Supt. Flynn rattles off the Farm's history.
The institution was established in 1949 as a part of the St. Catherine District Prison (now the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre). In February 1972, however, it was granted full autonomy as a medium-security prison. The objective was to have inmates doing short sentences in a programme that can accommodate some 280 prisoners. Now, says Flynn, the farm has been doing good in changing lives.
"Tamarind Farm is quite unique," says Flynn. Most of the inmates here participate in external work programmes and they don't get paid. The farm has also been running a vibrant rehabilitation programme which has helped several inmates passing through the Farm.
Take Sean. He is is a father of nine. He has been locked away for two years and nine months now. His charge: carnal abuse.
"Being here has helped me a lot," he says. Sean is an upholsterer at the Farm. He is one of a few other inmates in training and he has already completed Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSC). "When mi go back out into society, I want to be a better person. My main aim is to set up somewhere to help other inmates when they get out to find a job." Sean has one year and five months to go.
Tamarind Farm trains inmates in several skills such as tailoring, upholstering, masonry, carpentry and farming. "A year ago, we placed about 20 inmates and out of that 20, 14 are still working. One has even opened up his own shop in Montego Bay," explains Supt Flynn.
Inmates like Marvinwho will be released some time this month, says he has attended classes for just about four days of his soon-to-be completed six month sentence. The only training this high school drop-out has, came from his involvement in his family business. And he intends to go back to it in the United States as soon as he is out.
DOING THE TIME
"The leaf of life (ganja) is all I know," he says. Marvin migrated from Jamaica at age five and returned to do short stints in high school until he got kicked out. Now he is just "doing the time for the crime. Simple."
"What prison do to me right now is to open my eye and tell me that trust, you can't trust anybody," says Marvin.
Others like Markwho will also be leaving the Farm at the end of this month, said he will be trying to enrol in a tertiary institution. Mark, who graduated from high school with several CXC subjects, once worked in a bank and the retail industry. He, however, grew tired with the pace and returns he got from his job and decided to dabble in trafficking of ganja. "Selling weed, mi have all the free time. I wake up when I want to. Mi know the risk before so if mi do the crime, mi serve the time."
The returns for Mark were great before he got busted. "Mi make all $500,000 fi just one drop." But Mark plans to change all that when he gets out. He has already amassed a small fortune and his family, he says, are willing to help him if he plans to go back to school.
Supt. Flynn says plans are now being made to increase the number of dormitories at the Farm to accommodate another 100 inmates. Prisoners, he says, will be providing much of the labour for the construction of new dormitories.
