As
I watched this bright young man being railroaded by his former colleague police
officers, into the waiting police vehicle that would take him to the Bordelais
Correctional Facility, my heart reached out to him and his mother.
HTS
reported that Police Constable Dervin Wilson was sentenced to two years each
for the possession of a controlled drug and possession with the intent to supply
a controlled drug.
The
two sentences will run concurrently, meaning that he will serve only two years
in prison. Wilson was found guilty on May 7, 2013 and he was sentenced on
Friday, June 14.
Wilson,
who worked in the High Court (as an High Court orderly), was suspected of passing drugs to prison
officers.
He
was searched on the morning of July 31, 2012 outside the High Court while he
was in full police uniform and a quantity of cannabis was found on his person.
It
was a sad day for Choiseul - where the young man hails - and the RSLPF.
When
I taught Derville Wilson a few years ago at the Choiseul Secondary School, I
did not have the slightest clue the he would find himself in that ordeal. The
consensus among all his teachers was that he was a model student and his report
book during his 5 years of education at the school bears resounding testimony
to that. His character and behaviour were spotless; and if I were ever to fill
out an appraisal form for him, I would have rated him highly on all the
criteria.
Hence,
when I first heard he was charged for illegal drug possession whilst on duty,
the news was simply unbelievable! How could that 'nice' boy of the quality of
Derville who had appropriately decided to give his services to his country as a
law enforcer ever be entangled in that type of quagmire? Theoretically, that
was a "probability-zero" occurrence!
But
they say hindsight is 20/20 and the fact is it did happen. He is now behind
bars for 2 years. The damage has been done and it may be irreversible.
On
reflection, I asked: Did Derville really know what he did? Did he do it on his
own volition? What drove him to do it? Could there be powerful external network
influences working behind the scenes that pounced on his rustic vulnerability? Perhaps,
the authorities could consider working backwards into those possibilities and who
knows - it might lead to the discovery of a goldmine of evidence and intelligence
related to the local drug trade.
Derville’s
Mom may not have 'closed her eyes' since he was first charged. The conviction
and the prison sentence of her only son must be an unending nightmare to her.
But
Gertrude is not alone! There are so many mothers who perhaps share her
nightmare.
What's
next for Derville? Your guess is as good as mine; but suffice it to say that
history is replete with examples like him which may be instructive. If there
are ex-inmates success stories, then they must be so small that they probably
approach zero; and I'm sure the database which was started by the Division of
Social Research at the Ministry of Social Transformation will bear me out,
based the high incidence of un-employability and rejection of ex-convicts.
Unlike many other developed countries, the prison stigma does not go away
easily – if it does at all.
Hence,
whereas a prison term may resolve a criminal problem, it may create a chain
reaction of other problems - a lesson that many of our deviant young men will
not learn and one that Derville despite being a law enforcer of reputable
upbringing did not learn.
In
conclusion, Derville earned what he deserved. He - especially being a police
officer - should not have experimented with illegal drugs whether the intent
was consumption or supply. He has destroyed his good name and in the process
have left more blotches on the credibility of police force.
Kudos
must go to the police force for a job well done, especially as the case involved one of their very own.
One
assumes they will continue the good work and go out for the big guns, the
heroes of drug underworld who brandish their ill-gotten boldly in our faces.
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