Terrebonne council to talk police, firefighter pay
May 20, 2015OUR VIEW: Area’s marine industry vital to America
May 20, 2015
The students sat in silence as they heard a woman inside the Terrebonne Parish jail tell them what a life of illicit drugs and crimes had done for her, up to and including her current incarceration.
In some cases, Jessica Jeblonski said, she herself had done nothing wrong, but it was an ex-boyfriend who had left her “holding the bag” in a literal sense.
The youngsters hung on each word, their attention focused.
And for officials who organized the visit, that was jut the point.
Students from Ellender Memorial High and Oaklawn Junior High School toured the Terrebonne Parish jail last week as part of program that shows teens the consequences of criminal behavior.
They met with inmates who told them their stories, all the while urging them to change their ways now to avoid ending up like them later.
“What we’re trying to do is to help kids come to the realization on their own that certain types of behavior can lead to some very serious consequences later on down the road,” said Terrebonne Parish School District Superintendent Philip Martin.
Martin said this is a resurrection of a similar program conducted years ago that took all students to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Now, the students who are chosen for the jail visits are on the list because they have made some kind of choice that is bad, and are feared headed for trouble.
After getting of the bus Thursday morning, students made their way to the covered driveway in the front of the jail, called a “sally-port.”
Once they were all underneath, large cage-style gates rolled down, essentially locking them in. Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter spoke to the group, telling them that they have a choice and that they don’t want to end up here.
“I guarantee you that 98, 99 percent of the people of Terrebonne Parish have never been in here,” Larpenter said. “Only the ones that get arrested. And guess what. That’s what we’re trying to do for you to keep you from getting arrested.”
Students then made their way in the jail, first seeing how the jail’s correctional staff control the goings on within the cinderblock walls through the use of magnetic locks and video cameras. Then they visited the kitchen.
Timothy Ivery, an inmate who is serving a 10 year sentence for selling pain pills, was cooking when he stopped to tell the kids why they shouldn’t want to end up in jail. He explained that the kitchen staff, who are all inmates, work from midnight until nine in the evening every day.
“This is what you get when you sell drugs,” Ivery said. “When you sell weed, when you sell crack cocaine. This is what you’re paid.”
Students then heard from other inmates who shared their stories.
One inmate described how he had a wife, a good job and a house, but lost it all because he made a choice.
“This has been constructive, being able to give back to the community,” said Jayne Madison, who is will soon be released after serving time for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. “I see my daughter in these young ladies and I see my son, myself, in the young men. Hopefully they soak it in and it doesn’t go in one ear and out the other.”
Jeblonski, who is serving five years on a heroin possession charge, told the students that she was once an “A” student who attended college but started using drugs then. She explained how she lost a child to her drug addiction.
She left the child with her drug dealer while she went to work.
“I’ve never seen him again,” Jeblonski said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I got arrested for it.”
Her child was found dead due to cocaine in his blood and she was charged with manslaughter. She was absolved of the crime later, but caught with heroin afterwards, for which she is serving time now.
Students seemed receptive to the message inmates and law enforcement official were trying to convey.
“This is real,” said Keiriana Smith, an eight-grader from Oaklawn Junior High. “Nobody needs to come here.”
Groups of students from different junior high and high schools in Terrebonne Parish visited the jail each day last week. On one day, a teen admitted to being addicted to synthetic marijuana, officials said.
On that same day, three teens broke into tears, said Major Claude Triche, Terrebonne Jail’s warden.
“We’ve got to teach them that this is what you get,” Triche said. “If we could save one out of ten or change more than that, I’m hoping…I think it would be awesome.”
Some students made clear that they don’t intend to return.
“It’s going to change me a lot,” said Lyntrall Watson, a seventh-grader from Oaklawn. “The food is nasty and I don’t like people watching me use the bathroom.”
Terrebonne Parish Jail inmate Jasyne Madison tells local junior high school students about his life during a field trip to the jail. Law enforcement and school officials hope exposing the youths to the consequences of criminality will prevent them from following that path.
