NO THOUGHTS OF PRISON WHEN DOING CRIMES

Several current inmates at Hunt Correctional Center say the
possibility of going to prison was not a deterrent to them:

Mark Bruno, 26, of New Orleans:

"I wasn't worried" about going to prison. ... "I didn't care about
that. I was on drugs. I didn't think I had a problem."

"Where I grew up... you had to hustle to get the things your mom could
not afford. ... Now, I care about my life," he said.

He is in the IMPACT program, a intensive six-month diversion program
that includes boot camp discipline, drug treatment and education. He
pleaded guilty to theft to support a drug habit. Failure exposes him
to a seven-year prison term.

Jeffrey Coates, 23, of New Orleans

"I didn't think of it (prison). I didn't think of myself as a
criminal," he said. In his mind, he was "just a poor little junkie"
and he looked down on those who sold heroin for a living. He managed
to keep a job to buy his drugs, he said.

He is in the IMPACT program and pleaded guilty to possession of
heroin.

Tavalyn Session, 23, New Orleans:

"I never really thought about" the possibility of prison, she said,
admitting she dealt drugs to support her habit.

"I always felt that whatever was going to happen was going to
happen."

She is in the IMPACT program, too, while serving her sentence at
nearby Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women. She pleaded guilty
to possession of crack cocaine.

Carlos Harrison, 33, of Houston

"I had no idea whatsoever" what prison would be like. "It is not your
main concern. It doesn't even come to mind."

He is finishing up a sentence for a drug offense. He is in a program
designed to sharpen educational skills as well as life skills to
prepare him for release called Project Metamorphosis.

Eric Kingston, 56, of New Orleans

"Prison wasn't even thought of. You are just fulfilling your selfish
desires," he said. He served time in the early 1980s, but that did not
keep him from returning to drugs and eventually being sent back to
prison in the mid-1990s.

He is in a program designed to sharpen educational skills as well as
life skills to prepare him for release called Project Metamorphosis.