Fe­male pris­on­er Natasha De Leon, who has been be­hind bars for the last 23 years, yes­ter­day ad­vised the in­mates at the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC) to cap­i­talise on all op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ford­ed them while still in­car­cer­at­ed.

"Make your­self mar­ketable and pro­duc­tive, not just be­cause the cours­es are be­ing of­fered, but be­cause you want to make amends to so­ci­ety and be able to be ac­cept­ed again when you re­gain your free­dom. So that so­ci­ety can see that change in you. And you see that lit­tle voice in your head telling you not to do it...Don't do it!" she ad­mon­ished.

De Leon, along with Dar­ren Roger Thomas, were tried and con­vict­ed on No­vem­ber 9, 1995, for the bru­tal mur­der of Princes Town taxi dri­ver Chan­dranath Ma­haraj in 1993. The cou­ple, who were sen­tenced to death, had their con­vic­tions com­mut­ed to life in prison in 2008.

A com­posed sound­ing De Leon and fel­low in­mate, Shelly-Ann Anganoo, are mem­bers of the YTC's men­tor­ing pro­gramme.

The pair spoke yes­ter­day dur­ing an event, mark­ing T&T's par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­clu­sion in a glob­al tour by the US-based Youth for Hu­man Rights In­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The event was a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Blacks in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice (NABCJ) and the Na­tion­al Al­liance of Faith and Jus­tice's POP Pro­gramme (Pen, as in pen­i­ten­tiary or Pen­cil rep­re­sent­ing ed­u­ca­tion), both out of the US. The tour was co-or­di­nat­ed by Kr­ish­na Be­dassie, the of­fi­cer in charge of train­ing, treat­ment and pro­grammes at YTC.

In ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence, De Leon al­so re­called the dis­re­gard for ba­sic rights to even wa­ter and be­ing treat­ed as a crim­i­nal even be­fore be­ing sen­tenced.

How­ev­er, she al­so cau­tioned the in­mates who en­tered the pris­ons sys­tem with "bad at­ti­tudes" and then com­plained about of­fi­cers who in­fringed on their rights.

Adding a lit­tle hu­mour to the som­bre event, Anganoo stat­ed that in­dulging in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties means one has giv­en up his or her fun­da­men­tal rights and re­placed it with these:

"You have the right to be silent, you have the right to an at­tor­ney..."

Anganoo, who has been in prison for over 13 years, al­so not­ed that in­di­vid­u­als had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure they them­selves did not in­fringe on the rights of oth­ers. She and three oth­ers were con­vict­ed of the mur­der of re­tired school teacher Ral­phy Ram­cha­ran in 2003.

Af­ter first be­ing sen­tenced to 20 years hard labour, in 2011 the Court of Ap­peal grant­ed Anganoo a five-year re­duc­tion in her sen­tence. De Leon was a mi­nor when she com­mit­ted the crime.

Don't give up on coun­try's youths

Mary Shut­tle­worth, pres­i­dent of the hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tion, pre­sent­ed a video on the his­to­ry of the in­cep­tion and evo­lu­tion of hu­man rights. The au­di­ence was en­cour­aged in an in­ter­ac­tive and in­for­ma­tive ses­sion on the 30 rights of a hu­man be­ing hand­ed down through the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights cre­at­ed in 1948 by the Unit­ed Na­tions. To­day, 192 coun­tries are mem­bers of the UN.

Trinidad-born Car­lyle Hold­er, who head­ed one of the largest pris­ons in the US, spoke on be­half of the NABJ and called on the pub­lic not to "give up on the coun­try's youths". Ver­nice Robert­son rep­re­sent­ed the NAFJ.

Elvin Scant­le­bury, YTC su­per­in­ten­dent and in­cum­bent pres­i­dent of the Pris­ons Youth Club, called on the in­mates to take heed of all they had learnt, as well as the many op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to them both in and out­side of the prison sys­tem.

En­ter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed by San­ta Rosa in­mate/vo­cal­ist, Dil­lion War­wick, as well as flautists, YTC in­mate Akeil Mitchell and Dean Joseph of Mir­a­cle Min­istries In­ter­na­tion­al, Ch­agua­nas.

Ver­non Trot­man of­fered an orig­i­nal ca­lyp­so piece, cau­tion­ing youths to stay away from a life of crime and the mis­guid­ed no­tion that it of­fered a sense of fame.

The event end­ed with a per­for­mance by the US-based march­ing band Knowl­edge Is Pow­er Pro­gramme (KIPP) and an in­vi­ta­tion for at­ten­dees to vis­it the booths of over 18 youth groups in the coun­try.

Valdeen Shears-Nep­tune