A cou­ple of decades ago, I in­ter­viewed an in­di­vid­ual who was de­scribed to me by then com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Jules Bernard and com­mis­sion­er of pris­ons Michael Her­cules as the most vi­cious crim­i­nal and pris­on­er they ever en­coun­tered.

His name is Col­in Ros­ales. He had no re­morse for what he had done, said CoP Bernard. Com­mis­sion­er Her­cules said they would soft­en him up in the evenings, and the next morn­ing he would once again be rag­ing, pick­ing fights with oth­ers and beat­ing them. He was serv­ing a long-term sen­tence for a cou­ple of his crimes.

Hav­ing made an about-turn in his life in prison, Col­in re­ceived a par­don from then pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Clarke: “I was saved by the blood of Je­sus Christ,” he told me in an in­ter­view from which I pro­duced a cur­rent af­fairs fea­ture.

Col­in be­came Pas­tor Ros­ales. He got mar­ried and had two chil­dren, now young women. In that TTT pro­duc­tion, Col­in talked about a cou­ple of crit­i­cal fea­tures of his life. One, he was or­phaned and spent time here and there with fam­i­ly mem­bers and al­so in in­sti­tu­tion­al care. The sec­ond thing of note he re­it­er­at­ed to me sev­er­al times in the in­ter­view was: “No one ever told me that they love me, and I suf­fered quite an amount of beat­ings,” said Ros­ales.

On his own as a young man, he en­coun­tered women, but not love. The first time he ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing like care and love was in prison, giv­en by priests and var­i­ous re­li­gious groups.

Last week’s col­umn dealt with a man, from a lat­er age than Col­in, who had sim­i­lar life ex­pe­ri­ences, bar one. The man I re­ferred to last week as “CS” was sucked in­to his life of crime and “no-where­ness” through drug ad­dic­tion and way­ward­ness.

He spent time in prison for a range of what can be con­sid­ered pet­ty crimes. One dis­sim­i­lar­i­ty be­tween the two is that where­as Col­in be­came vi­cious, per­haps re­sult­ing from his bit­ter­ness, his vi­o­lent con­duct in prison, and the beat­ings he re­ceived there, that was not the ex­pe­ri­ence of CS; he was not a vi­o­lent pris­on­er.

CS has spent the last 30 years of his life on the street, in co­caine dens, and in prison. He lives to­day in a tun­nel that gush­es wa­ter from the Bel­mont hills in the rainy sea­son. “Some­times I does have to scram­ble my board (bed­spread across the canal) and get out,” he said to me. He has had women, but not love or re­la­tion­ships, he said.

This is not a sci­en­tif­ic sur­vey of the many fac­tors that lead young peo­ple in­to a life of crime; it is sim­ply an ef­fort to show sim­i­lar­i­ties that, more than 50 years ago, led two young men in­to hate, crime, and ul­ti­mate­ly de­viant and un­pro­duc­tive lifestyles. In the in­stance of Ros­ales, but for what he con­sid­ers the “sav­ing grace of God,” be­cause of the love he re­ceived in prison and then out­side, he turned not to drugs but to fel­low­ship and even­tu­al­ly to be­ing a pas­tor and build­ing a fam­i­ly.

Be­cause of the de­fi­cien­cies of his up­bring­ing and life, the ab­sence of a fa­ther to sup­port him and the fam­i­ly, the death of his moth­er and be­ing put on the street when the house he grew up in was sold, CS’s en­su­ing ad­dic­tion to co­caine, hav­ing start­ed with mar­i­jua­na and man­drax, and the vi­o­lence he at­tract­ed even at the drug den, which left him with phys­i­cal de­for­mi­ties, have all been the con­trib­u­to­ry fac­tors to his present con­di­tion of home­less­ness with con­tin­u­ing re­turns to the drug dens “hav­ing hus­tled enough to pay for a ‘ten piece.’”

Nei­ther one of the in­di­vid­u­als said any­thing about sig­nif­i­cant friend­ships at that time in their lives. In the in­stance of CS, he grew up in a very close-knit com­mu­ni­ty in which teenage re­la­tion­ships abound and where sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties at­tract the young. Al­though CS at­tend­ed a de­nom­i­na­tion­al school, the doc­trine and lifestyle ad­vo­cat­ed made no im­pres­sion on him as the pull to drugs and the en­su­ing life of crime were more at­trac­tive op­tions.

Yes, there are many out­reach ef­forts of church­es and so­cial groups all over T&T, but be­yond such in­ter­ven­tions by the likes of Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin and oth­ers af­fil­i­at­ed with one or the oth­er re­li­gious and so­cial groups, we as in­di­vid­u­als and small groups need to make ear­ly in­ter­ven­tions. When I spoke to CS, he was clear­ing some­one’s yard of an over­growth of weeds. What­ev­er the la­dy own­er of the home re­ward­ed him with, and she could eas­i­ly have got pro­fes­sion­al help but chose to as­sist in the man­ner that she did, that in­di­vid­ual act of kind­ness and care must have made him feel that he be­longed in some­one’s cal­cu­la­tion. It’s prob­a­bly too late for him, but who am I to make such a judge­ment?

The Gov­ern­ment and in­sti­tu­tions have their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, but so do we as fel­low hu­man trav­ellers along a some­times rough path. The ear­li­er the in­ter­ven­tion, the greater the chance of sav­ing an­oth­er young per­son from life on the streets, ad­dic­tion, and crime. When they reach the streets, our col­lec­tive hu­man­i­ty is de­val­ued.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host and News Di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, and a grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and St Au­gus­tine-In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.