DATE: Tuesday, September 30, 1997           TAG: 9709290075

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NAOMI AOKI, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   68 lines

INMATES TEACH EACH OTHER KEYS TO LIVING ON OUTSIDE

Eight years ago, Bernard Smith was packed into a cell-block with about 40 other inmates - each one with an attitude bigger and badder than the last, said Smith, who was serving time for cocaine possession.

Today, Smith, 45, lives in Memphis. He's selling digital phones, training other employees and getting ready to expand his business to Atlanta. He has not returned to jail since he got out in 1992, he said.

Smith credits Before and After, an inmate-run rehabilitation program he helped found in 1989 in Norfolk City Jail. Smith served 18 months in Norfolk and another 18 in a state prison in Halifax, he said.

``We just wanted some little area of the cellblock to do something constructive,'' Smith said in a recent telephone interview. ``I didn't think it was possible at first, with the fights, the drugs and the attitudes.''

But at the urging of an older inmate affectionately known as ``Pops,'' Smith turned the idea into an officially recognized jail program.

In eight years, Before and After has grown from a group of four or five inmates gathered in the corner of a cellblock doing arts and crafts to a separate cellblock of 35 inmates challenging, disciplining and educating each other.

``A lot of people wanted to get involved,'' said Smith about the program's early days. ``When they did and I got a chance to meet the younger brothers in there, I saw that they weren't educated, that some of them couldn't read. I wanted to do more.''

So the group's members started educating each other. Pops taught arts and crafts while other inmates taught English, history, construction, painting or auto mechanics, Smith said. Members even led therapy groups for positive thinking and self-awareness, sharing their own experiences and knowledge.

As the program grew, the jail administrators began to screen inmates for the program. Participation has always been voluntary, but inmates who violate jail rules are not accepted into the program. Jail officials also set aside a separate cellblock for the Before and After program.

The key to the program, Smith said, is that inmates help themselves and help each other.

``It's a powerful concept,'' Smith said. ``I think you get a better response from sharing with people going through what you're going through.''

Today, the program is fundamentally the same as when Smith left the jail.

Those who participate live the program 24 hours a day, and the rules are strict, said the Rev. Kirk Houston, who supervises all jail rehabilitation programs.

You must attend classes, help clean, be polite, stand tall, sit straight and respect your cellmates. You must not fight, curse, be disrespectful or disobey the rules.

Houston said he believes the program succeeds more often than most rehabilitation efforts in getting inmates to understand and change their behavior.

The jail has not done a thorough recidivism study, Houston said, but he estimates that fewer inmates who have gone through the program return to jail than those who don't or go through other programs.

Eight years ago, in a Norfolk jail cell, Smith wrote these words:

``This drug cocaine I call the Beast/and on young minds it loves to feast./The Beast called cocaine, is how my mind was slain/so listen closely to this story I have to tell./So you won't end up like me in a jail cell.''

Listen closely today and he'll tell you a different tale, one about how to get out and stay out of jail.

``I'm proud of myself, but more than that, I'm proud of the people who embraced the same feeling that I had to help themselves,'' Smith said. KEYWORDS: PRISONER SELF-HELP

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