Project PRIDE is sponsored by the state Department of Corrections and designed to help young people make wiser decisions in life.
TRENTON — Pierce hasn’t seen his twin brother in more than five years. Jessica has children she hasn’t seen in two years. Charles can only see his daughter during timed, guarded visits and Jennifer has parted from her fiancé forever.
Because they drove under the influence and sold and abused drugs, the inmates are separated from their former lives by prison walls. In Jennifer’s case, it’s worse: Driving high on drugs caused the death of her fiancé.
“The game has taken more from me than I’ve ever gotten from it,” Charles, 26, said about his former life of drug dealing and engaging in other crime.
Charles and other inmates spoke anonymously Thursday at the Lion of Judah Faith Center as part of Project PRIDE, which is sponsored by the state Department of Corrections and designed to help young people make wiser decisions in life.
“Being in the game, I learned that there are really two endings — and that’s either being incarcerated or potentially being killed,” Charles said.
Charles, who is serving time at the Albert C. Wagner correctional facility in Bordentown, first got into trouble at the age of 12 when his father passed away and he looked for new role models in his crime-riddled neighborhood.
“Unfortunately, the neighborhood that I grew up in has seen a lot of violence and crime and drug use and alcohol abuse. I adopted that lifestyle,” he said.
He wanted to clean up his act when he had a daughter at around 20 years old, but was struggling financially and decided he would sell drugs one last time.
“I figured, I’m not going to get caught. This is going to be my last time — not me, I’m not going to get caught,” he said. “Wrong. I was wrong.”
He’s serving a 10-year sentence for aggravated assault, attempted theft and possession of a handgun.
Pierce, 28, emphasized that he was not from a bad neighborhood or a broken family, but he still got into trouble and wound up in prison.
“I came from an amazing, privileged household,” he said. “This isn’t the way my life was supposed to turn out.”
Charles, an inmate with Project P.R.I.D.E. (Promoting Responsibility in Drug Education), speaks about his experience serving a ten-year prison term during a presentation at Lion of Judah Faith Center in Trenton on August 15, 2013. Pierce became addicted to oxycodone in college after a football injury. He introduced the drug to his brother, and when they ran out of it, they started robbing pharmacies and selling the pills.
“We had blinders on,” he said. “And when you’re selling drugs, you’re poisoning the community.”
Pierce was convicted of five armed robberies in 2007 and is also incarcerated at Albert C. Wagner.
His brother is serving time in another facility on the same charges. Pierce said he is sure his parents are suffering right along with him and his brother.
“Our family doesn’t deserve to be doing the time with us,” he said. “It’s embarrassing to have both of your children in prison, I’m sure.”
Jessica, 34, said her life was not out of control — she just enjoyed drinking on the weekends. She had three children from two marriages, was going to school full-time and had her own cleaning business.
“I thought I was doing all the right things.” she said.
After her finals before winter break, she decided to meet some of her friends to celebrate even though she had already been drinking at home. She was on the phone with her friends on the way there, and as she hung up the phone she drove through a stop sign and slammed into the back of a convertible, instantly killing a 20-year-old passenger in the back seat and injuring some of the other passengers.
Despite the horrors of that moment and its aftermath, Jessica is trying to make the best of things, she said.
Jessica, an inmate with Project P.R.I.D.E. (Promoting Responsibility in Drug Education), speaks about her prison sentence and her life leading up to a fatal DUI crash during a presentation at Lion of Judah Faith Center in Trenton on August 15, 2013. “We can’t change our pasts but we can change today and we can change tomorrow, and that’s why I’m here. To change today,” she said.
Jessica is halfway through a five-year sentence at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women.
A life of drug abuse and a similar vehicle tragedy turned life upside down for Jennifer, 23.
Jennifer was a promising softball player in high school, but she couldn’t shake her rebellious habits, abusing drugs through high school and being in and out of rehabilitation programs.
When she was 20, she and her fiancé, Justin, 29, were high on PCP and driving home from her court appearance for a traffic ticket.
“We were really close to home and I thought we’d be able to make it home before the full effect of the drug hit me,” she said. “I blacked out — I hit the back of a parked tractor trailer in the fork in the road and the car spun around and flipped over, and the roof of the car was flipped off.”
Justin was ejected from the car and killed.
At the request of Justin’s mother, Jennifer received the minimum sentence of three years with a mandatory of 2½ years being served. She will be eligible for parole at the end of 2014.
Project PRIDE was founded in 1998 and is offered to schools, churches, community agencies and other programs free of charge. Michael Ritter, the education program specialist at the state Department of Corrections, said that he believes that these presentations can improve communities and help with the inmate rehabilitation process.
Those who enter the program are less likely to return to a life of crime and drug abuse.
“This message speaks to everyone. Not just the folks here at this church, not just people here in Trenton, not just people here in the state of New Jersey. Everyone,” he said. “This message is universal, and it’s valuable. We need to get this out here, for sure.”
Contact Kelly Johnson at kjohnson@njtimes.com.
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