PRISON'S 'LIFERS' TACKLING CRIME

The street is where crime breeds. Its code is an eye for an eye, a life for
a life. Honor means not being a snitch. And disrespect can get you killed.

This so-called "street culture" is foreign to most Bucks and Montgomery
County residents. But with drug gangs from Philadelphia, Trenton and
Allentown inching ever closer to our borders, experts say it's a language
we must learn.

The answer might come from deep within Pennsylvania's most populated
maximum-security prison.

At the State Correctional Institution at Graterford in Skippack, Montgomery
County, a group of inmates serving life on Tuesday presented its plan to
end the culture of street crime.

The program by LIFERS Inc. was held in conjunction with the 14th World
Congress of Criminality, a convention in Philadelphia this week that is
drawing crime prevention experts from as far away as Australia and Great
Britain.

The 80-member inmate organization meets weekly inside the prison to discuss
ways to make their home communities better. Participants say that although
they will never walk the streets again, they want their families to live in
a safer environment.

"We have a vested interest in eradicating crime," said Tyrone, a
52-year-old Philadelphia resident serving life for second-degree murder.
"Our families still live on those streets."

Tyrone - prison officials do not allow inmates' last names to be published
- - said that the current criminal justice approach to stemming crime is
failing because street culture rewards criminal behavior and makes
rehabilitation nearly impossible.

Unless attitudes out there are changed, he said, more young people will end
up behind bars.

"No matter how many people we arrest, no matter how many prisons we build
. you take a person off the streets, there will always be someone to take
his place. It's a continuous flow. An assembly line."

As criminal justice students, activists and educators rubbed elbows with
jumpsuit-clad inmates in the prison chapel, members of LIFERS used
role-play to drive their message home.

During an elaborate skit, the inmates acted out a scenario in which "Ace,"
a former drug dealer, returns to his neighborhood after a 15-year stint
behind bars.

Ace soon learns that his nephew, "J-Money," has risen to the top of the
narcotics trade on the block and is headed toward a gun-blazing showdown
with a rival dealer.

After some very realistic - and profane - arguments, J-Money agrees to back
down, saying he respects Ace's opinion because he's an "Old Head," or
elder, in the neighborhood.

Tyrone, who was named Inmate of the Year by the Pennsylvania Prison Society
and was one of the hosts of Tuesday's program, said that LIFERS teaches
inmates about the pitfalls of street culture so that they can bring the
message back to the young J-Moneys on their blocks.

"This is about building relationships and bringing men who are in the
culture into self-awareness," he said.

Graterford is home to more than 3,400 inmates, 767 of whom are serving life
sentences with no chance of parole. It houses the largest inmate population
in Pennsylvania and the sixth largest in the nation.

David DiGuglielmo, superintendent of Graterford, said he hopes the LIFERS
message will be heard on the outside. For that to happen, he said,
community leaders and citizens have to change their thinking.

"This is an issue of public safety, one we talk about more than doing
something about it," DiGuglielmo said. "It's easier to find 100 people
willing to volunteer to come here and work with inmates than to find one
person in the community to reach out with programs to help an inmate when
he leaves."

For more information on LIFERS visit the Pennsylvania Prison Society at
(http://www.prisonsociety.org)www.prisonsociety.org.