Inmates urge Liberty students not to follow in their footsteps

LIBERTY

At one time, the four men standing in front of the roomful of eighth-graders at W.S. Guy Middle School on Wednesday were just like them.

They were making their transitions from childhood to adulthood — about to step up from junior high to high school.

They had their dreams about what they wanted out of life. For them, it was careers in law enforcement, engineering, construction and sports.

They wanted to fit in with their friends, and sometimes, they felt like they didn’t.

Like the W.S. Guy eighth-graders, they had plenty of choices.

They made too many wrong ones, and now, as inmates at the Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio, they have none.

“Someone’s making them for us,” said James Moore, 38, who has 23 months left to finish on a 10-year sentence for aggravated burglary and drug trafficking.

Moore and his fellow participants in the Dope is for Dopes Youth Outreach Program, which allows carefully screened minimum-security prisoners to speak at schools, encouraged W.S. Guy’s students to makes good decisions. Their goal, they say, is to encourage teenagers not to make the same mistakes they did.

“We’ll tell you what not to do,” said Stanley Martovitz, 32, who has one year left on his seven-year sentence for aggravated burglary, drug trafficking and felonious assault. “We’re experts at what not to do!”

What not to do, the men told them, is to ignore the advice of the people who have their best interests at heart such as their parents and teachers, and believe that taking street drugs and drinking is normal just because they see it happening around them all the time.

In Jimmy Johnson’s neighborhood, he saw a lot of bad decisions while growing up.

Read more of their stories in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.