THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 4, 1996 TAG: 9607020160
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT McCASKEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 58 lines
Their bright faces turned serious just minutes into the program.
About three dozen elementary school students looked straight-faced as they heard ``Straight Talk'' about life behind bars from two Norfolk City Jail inmates.
``Jail is not a good place to be - a lot of people get hurt in jail,'' inmate David Cox told pupils at Monroe Elementary School. ``The reason why we're here is to tell you that the problems start out of jail - like with the company you keep. ... I'm locked up because I was a drug dealer. I'm paying for doing wrong. I can't drive expensive cars and wear fancy shoes in jail.''
Inmate William Allgood added, ``You're young now - jail is not somewhere you want to end up.''
For almost an hour, the prisoners shared their experiences: breakfast at 2:30 in the morning, overcrowding, fights, death threats.
Several of the children grimaced.
``People can get killed in jail,'' said Darnell Sanders, a fifth-grader at Tanners Creek Elementary School. ``It kind of scared me a little bit.''
``They fight over TVs and everything in jail,'' Monroe second-grader Fernando Pittman said. ``If you do something too bad, you could go there.''
Held last week, the ``Straight Talk'' program was sponsored by the Peace `N' the Streets organization, a nonprofit group that provides guidance and social services to children and teenagers from low-income and crime-ridden neighborhoods. The organization was founded in 1992 in Newport News by Gary Singleton.
``A lot of kids have an unrealistic, glorified view of jail,'' Singleton said. ``This helps them know at a young age how it really is.''
Singleton arranged the talk with the assistance of the work-release program of the Norfolk City Jail. Before doing the talk, Cox and Allgood had worked in cleanup projects that Peace `N' the Streets had conducted in low-income neighborhoods around the city.
``I've been in and out of jail for 15 years, and I haven't been able to be the father I should have been,'' Cox explained. ``Until I get out in September and back to my family, this was a way I could give something back to the young people.''
Singleton's group, with offices in Washington and Baltimore, also sponsors youth rallies, food drives, basketball games and youth mentorship programs for at-risk children. In May, Singleton took about 13 kids from the Oakleaf Forest and Diggs Town neighborhoods to Washington for a private discussion with Jesse Jackson.
``I was inspired to start this group because I have a younger brother and children,'' said Singleton, 31, who lives in Newport News and works as a supervisor in the cellular phone department of the Price Club in Norfolk. ``I wanted to give them something positive to do. If they they don't have something positive out there, they could do something negative.''
Singleton raises money for activities by selling his organization's T-shirts and hats, and from donations by area businesses. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by SCOTT McCASKEY
Inmates David Cox, foreground, and William Allgood talk about jail
with Monroe Elementary School children. by CNB