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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesUndercurrents: Two Long-Termers Seek to Put Record Straight at Golden Grove

Undercurrents: Two Long-Termers Seek to Put Record Straight at Golden Grove

A regular Source feature, Undercurrents explores issues, ideas and events as they develop beneath the surface in the Virgin Islands community.

A type of patio juts out in front of the single-story structure, complete with a couple of picnic benches and a raised platform where one could imagine children putting on a play. On the other side is an open “recreation” area: cement, with nothing on it but a stray cat.

In between there’s a big room and a short, narrow hallway off of which, dormitory style, is a line of rooms, each with a closed door fitted with a lock.

Something about the austerity and the remote location is reminiscent of Girl Scout camp. But the women here are not campers on an overnight. They are inmates serving time at Golden Grove Correctional Facility on St. Croix for serious crimes. Right now five women occupy the section of the building designated for convicted felons. On the other side of a locked door is a similar set-up where three female detainees are separated from the convicts while they await trial and possible sentencing.

There is a fence surrounding the women’s small compound, and on the other side is a big, open yard shared with the prison’s male population, which generally ranges somewhere around 300. There are buildings that also serve as common areas including the chapel, the commissary, the kitchen and dining hall. All are enclosed by high fencing adorned with razor wire.

This is home to Denise Donovan and Kareema Thompson, two women who agreed to talk about their lives in prison.

For more than two hours last week, they shared their stories. Juel Anderson, public information officer for the Bureau of Corrections, arranged the meeting and sat in with the inmates and the reporter. Prison Warden Basil Richards also attended much of the interview.

Both women are from St. Thomas and both were convicted of violent crimes.

Kareema has served about eight years of a 25-year sentence for second degree murder in the shooting death of “a little boy that I used to mind,” 12-year old Alphonso Blyden III. Kareema is hoping for a chance at early parole, which can be granted in special circumstances after a prisoner has served one-third of her sentence.

“I’m in here for murder, first degree,” Denise said. Her conviction is for the stabbing death of her boyfriend, Clayton Laurent. She’s been incarcerated for nine years. Hers is a life sentence with no hope of parole.

Denise’s mainstay is her Bible, she says. She reads it, quotes from it, carries it and tries to live by it. She described how, in hard times, she knelt and prayed: “God, here’s your child again.”

Kareema Thompson.For Kareema, there are her three children, a 16-year-old daughter and two sons, 14 and 10, who live with their grandmother on St. Thomas.

“They motivate me every day,” Kareema said. “I call my mom every morning” to see how they are doing.

Prisoners at Golden Grove are allowed visitors “behind the screen” every Friday from noon to 3 p.m., and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. On the second and third Saturdays of the month, “contact visits” are allowed. When her children come for a contact visit, “I get to hold them,” Kareema said.

But they don’t come twice a month. Or even once a month. At roughly $140 per ticket, “it’s too much money” for the airfare from St. Thomas, she explained.

Denise doesn’t have a lot of visitors either. She has a 23-year-old daughter who works as a pharmacist in Orlando, Fla., obviously an even more expensive airfare away.

“She comes down maybe once a year,” Denise said. “She likes to look for me on my birthday” in April. Denise has a couple of friends who live on St. Thomas too, but it’s not easy for them to visit. And a third good friend living stateside is older and has trouble traveling.

Both women work in the commissary, earning $40 a month or $1.33 per day.

“We work as a team,” Denise said.

“We do everything,” said Kareema, from sales to tallying up paperwork and light cooking.

When the entire prison was on lock-down recently, the two also worked in the kitchen. Normally only male prisoners are in the kitchen. Female prisoners have their meals in their unit.

“The food is getting better” under the new warden, Denise said, prompting the warden to ask about the mystery cheese he met at Golden Grove.

No matter how long you microwaved it, “it never used to melt,” Denise said with a laugh.

“It got hot and you stretch it like a rubber band,” Kareema added.

Richards described Kareema and Denise as model prisoners. Both have served as volunteers, traveling to schools to speak with students about prison life, and talking with elementary and junior high students who visit Golden Grove on field trips.

“They listened to us,” Denise said. Some looked around and said they don’t like it. “I told them, ‘that’s why you come here, so you don’t come here.’”

Both women are also in the church choir and sing at services on Sunday. In October they joined with the Golden Grove band for a prisonwide concert. There was another concert in December, open to inmates’ families visiting the prison.

Although she’s further from home at Golden Grove, Denise said, “I’d rather be in jail on St. Croix than on St. Thomas.” That’s because when she was held on St. Thomas for a while, she said, she couldn’t stand the sound of its iron door clanging shut.

Kareema said she likes Golden Grove because “they have more stuff for me to do.” She’s taken classes in computers, sewing, anger management and parenting. She’s been working on an associate degree in business management via correspondence course since 2009.

If and when Kareema gets out of prison, she said she wants to open her own business and live in Atlanta. “I don’t want to stay in the Virgin Islands to be around the same crowd again. I want to elevate myself.”

Kareema has been working on her self-control, with coaching from Denise.

Kareema described a recent incident in which, she said, another inmate in the unit tried to pick a fight with her and that she ignored the other woman. “Here I had a mop in my hand, and she’s up in my face.” But Kareema just kept mopping, she said, listening to music on her earphones rather than retaliating.

“It’s not hard for the ignorant side (of me) to come out, “Kareema said. But she knows that fighting would tarnish her good conduct record and damage her chances for parole, so she’s not going to let another prisoner provoke her.

“You’re not going to keep me here,” she said. “I’m going to go home to my children.”

Denise said she told Kareema she was proud of her. “The devil is busy, I tell you, in our dorm,” she said.

Both women said a lot of prison life is learning how to get along. You can go into your room, but there’s an open transom above the door, so you have to negotiate with your neighbors over noise levels, and, sometimes, over cigarette smoke – although smoking is not allowed inside.

The two said short-term prisoners tend to be more volatile and to get upset about little things. And they described real friendship and trust as very difficult to come by.

“You can’t say too often (a person is) a friend,” Denise said, “because people switch. You don’t tell them everything.”

“Denise going get my back and I’m going to get hers,” Kareema said. “If I don’t get it from Denise, I don’t want it. … You don’t give Kareema nothing.”

“It’s not an easy road in here for sure,” Denise observed.

“I for sure ain’t coming back,” Kareema said.

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