‘The best Christmas gift ever’

Nearly three months of incarceration among hardened criminals at one of the country’s overcrowded and dilapidated prisons has convinced Steve Sanderson that he has already experienced “hell”.

Sanderson, 47, who operates an aluminium fabrication business, had been locked away at the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre since October 4, when he began serving a nine-month sentence because he could not afford to pay the alternative punishment of a $200,000 fine.

He was convicted for the offence of fraudulent conversion after failing to return the 50 per cent deposit collected from a customer who changed her mind about the job she hired him to do, Sanderson acknowledged.

Seventy days inside the maximum-security prison exposed Sanderson to unprecedented violence, he recounted on Thursday. He witnessed violent stabbings; a brick “like those old building materials” being used to bash a person’s head; and an inmate getting his head bashed against a grilled gate.

“Prison is hell! It’s like a war zone; it’s nerve-wracking and every week there is bloodshed. I could get very graphic,” he told The Sunday Gleaner during an exclusive interview last week.

“You can be the most prudent Christian and you lose your life violently in there and you don’t have to do anything wrong.”

“I lost my life savings in Cash Plus, I lost my dad in 2019 to cancer … . I’ve had a lot of hard times and sad moments and all of them combined wouldn’t compare to being in prison. That’s the best way to describe it,” he said.

Thankfully, a Christmas blessing came early for the father of five children when the charity organisation Food for the Poor (FFP) stepped in and paid the $200,000 fine.

He was released last Wednesday, escaping nearly six more months inside the maximum-security prison.

Sanderson was one of four persons released from the St Catherine District Prison that day after FFP paid their fines, totalling nearly $350,000.

Their identities have not been disclosed publicly.

But according to Sanderson, one of them was a young man “between 18 and 19 years old”, who was serving a six-month sentence because he could not pay the $100,000 fine that was imposed as an alternative punishment following his conviction for driving without a licence.

One of the remaining two is a man who was serving time because he could not pay the $40,000 fine imposed by a judge for operating without a food handler’s permit, according to FFP.

Paying fines to secure the release of prisoners convicted for non-violent crimes is a global goodwill gesture done by the charity every year during the Easter and Christmas seasons.

PINCHED HIMSELF ‘ABOUT 40 TIMES’

In the first moments of his renewed freedom, Sanderson pinched himself “about 40 times” and spoke to random people along the roadway just to confirm that he was actually a free man, he recounted.

Sanderson said his family, including his young daughter, who has “suffered” emotionally because of his incarceration, have already made it clear that his return home is their Christmas gift.

“They actually told me that they don’t have to get anything more for Christmas. Just the fact that I am out, … this is the best Christmas gift,” he stated.

Still, Sanderson plans to treat them to a sumptuous Christmas dinner and a small family outing.

“We are going to go to the beach and I am going to do all the cooking and baking this Christmas,” he declared.

EVERYBODY NEEDS A SECOND CHANCE

Helping non-violent offenders and returning them to their families and society means a lot to them and is the right thing to do, especially at Christmas, noted Sandra Levy-Ramsey, administrator of FFP’s prison ministry department.

She disclosed that one of the prisoners freed on Wednesday has an eight-year-old daughter.

“Everybody does something wrong at some time in their lives, so we can’t point fingers. We need to give everybody a second chance,” Levy-Ramsey told The Sunday Gleaner on Friday.

Noting that people convicted for murder, lottery scamming or drug-related crimes are not considered for early release, she said, “Since we have been helping people in prison, we find that none of them go back.”

“Remember, we don’t just get them out. They come back to us in January and we listen to their stories and we try to help them to put their lives back together,” Levy-Ramsey explained.

PRISON ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE

Built in the 18th century, the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre is bursting at the seams with prisoners, and it could be on the verge of collapse because of significant structural damage, stakeholder groups have warned.

“There are places at St Catherine [Adult Correctional Centre] right now that nobody can be placed and this has been so for quite a few years,” said Arlington Turner, chairman of the association that represents correctional officers.

“We are not safe within these spaces and the inmates are not safe.”

The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) acknowledged that “there is visible damage to various structures” at the prison, located in the old Jamaican capital of Spanish Town.

The DCS said the natural wear and tear of the “oldest correctional facilities in operation”, combined with soil settlement, have contributed to the visible impact on the prison structure.

“The aged stonewall buildings exhibit exterior cracks, which were exacerbated by recent earthquakes and heavy rains,” the DCS said last Monday in response to questions submitted by The Sunday Gleaner.

It disclosed that between December last year and January this year, an engineering firm conducted an assessment of the “civil and structural infrastructure” of its facilities.

Since then, however, Jamaica has been rocked by several earthquakes, including a magnitude 5.4, and one weather system in recent months, making it necessary for another assessment to be conducted, the DCS said.

“We are now awaiting the final report from the structural engineers post the most recent earthquake,” the correctional services said.

The DCS disclosed, too, that an interim report has recommended that one block, which housed 100 prisoners, should be abandoned. Those inmates will be relocated within the St Catherine correctional facility or to other prisons.

PRISON CULTURE CREATING MONSTERS

But after his near three-month ordeal, Sanderson is more concerned that the prevailing culture inside the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre could be helping to transform law-abiding citizens into monsters.

He cited, as an example, a conversation with another inmate, who indicated that he was a “normal” person when he first entered the penal institution for a minor offence.

“Now he is a monster and he says, ‘you have to be like that for them not to pick on you’. Because if they view you as somebody who will kill them, they will avoid you,” Sanderson shared with The Sunday Gleaner.

Citing the case of the teenager who was released with him, he suggested that authorities develop a system to separate persons incarcerated for minor offences from hardened criminals convicted of serious crimes.

“You put a person like that in that situation and you are not only exposing them to danger, you are exposing them to becoming violent themselves because when your back is against the wall, you are going to have to defend yourself and that can become your nature,” he reasoned.

“He doesn’t belong in prison. What he did was wrong, but there must be some other avenue,” he suggested.

Sanderson heaped praises on the gesture by Food for the Poor which allowed him to be reunited with his family for Christmas. He describes it as a life-saver for many prisoners and said he hopes to one day add his contribution to the initiative.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com