Jailbird decides to lead life right

Jail is a tough place to be in, especially when you don’t know how long you are going to be inside. It’s my first time and I have been in remand for nine months.

Remands mean I am waiting to see what is going to happen to me when I get to court. My lawyer says I’m facing three and a half years in jail.

What changes in this place? Nothing. When I hear people say “what’s up?” what answer do I expect? Same old, same old. When I wake up in the morning, what am I going to do? The same thing today as I did nine months ago.

I wish I never made that wrong choice I made. That’s all I think of, because even though I want to help my family by going out on the land and hunting or doing other things for them, I still have to serve my time. When I was free I had the chance to help other people, but I picked alcohol and drugs.

I used to be a friendly, easy-to-get-along-with guy until I started booze and drugs. It changes your life big-time but does it help you get back to that other person? In my experience — no. You might think that it takes away your anger, but it only ends up adding more anger to your heart after you find out how you acted when you were blacked out.

My parents told me a lot of times to stay away from drugs and liquor and not to hurt my common-law, but I never listened to their advice. That’s why I’m here. It hurts inside me that I’m in jail. Some people learn from their parents or friends or elders and some learn the hard way (and I mean the hard way). That’s how I had to learn.

I thank God for bringing me to a place where I could learn before I hurt someone else. I wanted my own way but my own way led me into jail. Now I am going to lead life right.

Jail is not the place to be in and I’m not joking about that. I am not coming back to this place because I already experienced it and it’s not the place for young people. I’ve never seen true happiness in here.

I ask myself why did I do such things to my common law? I see that I deserve to be here and I confessed to my parents and my common law’s parents that I deserve to be here. Even though I have changes, I have to accept what the court does to me.

Young people of Nunavut: listen to your parents and elders and you will live long and keep your freedom.

Please don’t follow my lifestyle. There are a lot of things you can do out there, but in prison you don’t do what you want to do. You can’t get the things you want. You get two telephone calls a day and two visits a week, but you get locked up three times every day. You have no choices.

Think about these things before committing a crime.

Chris N.
Baffin Correctional Centre