ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / September 22, 1999

(Editor’s Note: Names of students in this story have been changed because of their disciplinary status)

GARYVILLE -“I think the kids got something out of it,” Ronnie Fiest said with a satisfied look on his face. Fiest, a probation officer with theJuvenile Division of St. John the Baptist Parish District Court, was talkingabout the field trip he, other adults and 23 students at the St. John Re-Direction Center took last week to Angola Penitentiary.

Phyllis Clark, principal at the Re-Direction Center, agreed.

“The next day, after the trip, they were very subdued,” she said.

The Re-Direction Center is a school where the St. John Parish SchoolSystem places students who have been suspended or expelled. A state-mandated program, the idea is to keep educating the students even while they are being punished. While attending classes, students are alsocounseled by a staff social worker and psychologist. Students are sent tothe Re-Direction school for a maximum of a year and the minimum of 45 days. As the name of the school implies, the purpose is to take thesetroubled students and re-direct them in a different direction. Fiest andClark see the Angola trip as a way to help turn these kids around.

The lesson was not lost on five of the students who went on the field trip.

“I know one thing,” says Harry, a 17-year old who was caught in possession of marijuana, “I know I don’t want to go there.””I don’t ever want to go there,” agreed Miguel, who is in the Re-Direction Center for fighting.

Bob, a quiet 13-year old who is in the center for writing a threatening letter, shook his head. “I know that I learned a lesson. I don’t ever want togo back there, even as a visitor.”Jack and Rodger, also in the center for drug possession, nodded their head in agreement.

This is the seventh field trip to Angola for Fiest. The first time he tookonly teens who were on probation to try and scare some sense into them.

It was successful, so he went to the St. John Parish School Board andsuggested they use the same method with their students. Since then, hehas taken students from several schools in the parish.

The last trip was a little different. Before, the students rode in regularschool buses.

“That is pretty grueling,” admitted Fiest.

Fiest managed to get funds from several parish businesses, and last week, the students from the Re-Direction Center rode up to Angola in a comfortable chartered bus.

“We got funds throughout the parish,” said Fiest. “When we go back inFebruary, we will also be riding in a chartered bus.”Clark thinks the best thing about the visit to Angola is that it gives the students something to hope for.

“They don’t seem to have a lot of hope,” she said. “Giving them hope is thehardest thing.”Clark hopes when the kids see the dead-end life of prison, they will realize there are other things in life besides crime and prison.

Miguel said he definitely wanted to do something with his life after seeing the Angola inmates working in the fields.

“There is no way I’m going to work in those fields for two cents an hour,” he declared.

Miguel said he now plans to attend a vocational school after graduation and learn welding.

When asked what the scariest part of the tour was, all five said it was seeing the lethal injection table in the death house. Harry said he was alsoscared by the pens of dogs used to hunt down escaped prisoners. Looking atthe guards on horseback with shotguns out in the fields also made a lasting impression on the students.

Clark said, “Those guards have orders to shoot to kill, and I think that the reality of that really impressed the boys.”They also got to talk to three inmates who are serving life sentences “I liked that,” said Harry. “They told us like it is so we don’t go down thesame road.”They were also lectured by Angola’s most famous inmate, Wilbert Rideau, editor of the prison newspaper, The Angolite, and writer/director of the Oscar-winning documentary The Farm.

“They were fortunate to meet Wilbert Rideau,” said Fiest. “He gave them agood lecture.”The students also talked to the manager of the prison radio station and another inmate serving a life sentence. According to the students, theinmates didn’t yell or scream at them, just quietly told them what life was like behind bars. They were told how there is absolutely no privacy inprison and how prisoners are told what to do, how to do it and where to do it.

One of the inmates students met is a graduate of a St. John Parish highschool who has been in prison for 38 years. The thing he wanted most inlife was a taste of a shrimp po-boy, students said he told them.

But most important, the prisoners told the students the choice is theirs.

They can either lead useful, productive lives or end up in prison. It is allup to the individual.

Miguel, Harry, Bob, Roger and Jack all seemed to have gotten the message.

Except for Miguel. who is going to vocational school, the other four saidthey want to go to college when they get out of high school.

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