Charles Richardson has some insight into why some of Bermuda’s young black males find itself immersed in a world of drugs, guns and crime.

He spent nearly seven years in prison for wounding and firearms’ offences, but used his time behind bars to successfully study for a law degree and is now one of the Island’s prominent lawyers.

Having experienced the impact of negative peer pressure that lead to his criminal activities he has empathy with the plight of those young black men who feel they have few other options in life than to turn to crime.

After an upsurge in violent attacks on the Island, including a number of shootings, Mr. Richardson has spoken to The Royal Gazette about his experiences previously as a young black man with few prospects and how the same “hopeless” situation is facing others who turn to criminal activity as a consequence.

“There is something that leads you to put yourself in the midst of that negative peer association — and usually its disillusionment and disenchantment with the fact that young black men don’t have very many prospects of success unless they immerse themselves in certain channels and align themselves in certain organisations,” said Mr. Richardson.

There are a lot of young guys who are angry, he said, adding: “I remember I was angry at society before I even understood why.”

According to Mr. Richardson “old-school” black people would vent their anger about how unfair Bermuda was, but they would channel that anger into positive activities, such as marches, protests, concerts and benefits — activist type activities.

Younger people inherited that anger but are not given the same positive tools to channel it, he explained: “The anger that springs from being disenfranchised, the anger that springs from being denied opportunity.

“At the end of the day young men who are susceptible to negative messages and negative peer associations are those who are first and foremost the ones who are angry. For those who aren’t angry the message doesn’t really penetrate them, it doesn’t affect them.”

At a young age it was clear to him there were three different sides of Bermuda; a white Bermuda, a respected black Bermuda and a marginalised black Bermuda.

“I was in the marginalised black Bermuda, and most of the young men that I know living in the marginalised black Bermuda are angry — not all of them act on it, or act out that anger in the same way, but they are all angry, they are all mad. They are wondering why they can’t drive a car like that.”

This same anger has lead many young men to create their own sort of “enemy nation” within a nation — one that allows them to take their own position and do what they like.

Mr. Richardson describes their attitude as one of: “You won’t give me an equal chance in your society so I’ll make my own,” however, he does not consider these young men to be in “gangs”.

“What you have in Bermuda is neighbourhoods, pockets of individuals who have been around each other all their lives. If you live on (one) road and you go out and hang out with the guys on the wall, even if you don’t do what they do, you are part of the crew.

“Here in Bermuda the term ‘gang’ is misplaced. You have collectives of guys who have grown up together, who spend most of their time together, and if they are doing illegal things inevitably will do those things together”.

“I think by calling them gangs you give them a legitimacy they don’t deserve. By calling them gangs you buy into the hype.

“It’s a loyalty thing. It’s not necessarily a ‘let’s ban together with a defined purpose’. It’s ‘these are my friends, these are the guys that I hang with all the time. These are the guys that I know have my back’.”

“If there’s a genius called gang, then what we have in Bermuda is a very weak, diluted, species of that gene.”

According to Mr. Richardson, the problems on the Island have not changed but the context and some of the mechanisms have changed and become worse.

“Of course, it’s got worse. Everywhere these young men look they see all sorts of opulent material possessions; nice cars, nice rims, nice houses. You think they don’t want these things? Of course they want these things — and the next question is how do they get it?”

“Opportunity in Bermuda is still reserved for the favoured few — for those black people whose family have connections, have money and have aligned themselves with certain political opinions. Let’s be real, the ‘economic first’ links in Bermuda are still controlled by one group.”

While young black men in Bermuda want to try, Mr. Richardson believes there is nowhere for them to go. “A Bermuda secondary school certificate is about as valuable as a roll of Charmin (toilet paper) to the average employer in Bermuda.

“The Ministry of Education can say what they like about a Bermuda secondary school certificate. It is not worth the paper it is printed on to the average employer.

“And that’s the most the average young black male leaves the Bermuda school system with — a BSSC certificate.”

Mr. Richardson hates when people say there are so many opportunities on the Island, and asked: “Where?”

“If it hadn’t been for the fact that I actually got a law degree in prison, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I actually did something monumental, then I would have been in the same position that they are in, with a BSSC certificate, trying to secure the type of employment that will give to me the type of lifestyle that I see all around me.”

“And the reason I chose law really didn’t have a whole lot to do with economic enrichment or upward mobility. I chose law because I liked it. I got my first law book from Mark Pettingill and read it and fell in love with it. So law and I have had a love-hate relationship ever since then.”

While Mr. Richardson was able to reform his life, he believes he is the exception to the rule.

“People often point to me and say ‘look at what he’s done’ yeah, but I am the first to have done it in history, I think, and no one knows when it will happen again. I can’t be used as the rule.”

He recalls his own obstacle to success when he was full of drive and talent to go to law school, but had no money to get him through his schooling.

“I left Bermuda to go away and sit the bar, knowing that I didn’t have enough money, but I knew that if I kept sitting around waiting until I had enough I would never go.

“I took a bold step. I said ‘you know, I’ve got enough money to last me until the end of first term’. I am going to go there and I’m going to do so well in that first term that when I return to Bermuda for my break I am going to have positive references and someone is going to give me some money. And that’s exactly what happened.”

“I came home, I approached Excel foundation, I approached the Department of Education, and once everybody saw that I was doing well — I will say this, that Bermuda is a very generous society when they can see that you are serious.”

“But the thing was I was serious before I left, I was so serious I left knowing I didn’t have enough money. But if I hadn’t been as bold, as impetuous as I was, I’d still be here, and I had a law degree. I had to earn a degree before I went to sit the bar.”

“I am the exception to the rule. What do you think would have happened to the average guy who wanted to go away and complete his electrical engineering degree? What do you think would have happened to him?”

“That’s why they are down and doing what they are doing. People aren’t serious about helping them. “It almost makes you wonder if there some predetermined plan to ensure some segment of the population remains as second class citizens.

“It’s almost like someone must be at the bottom so others can be at the top. I don’t understand it.”

Mr. Richardson said these young men have not been given the tools to thrive in society and compared them to the Bermuda cricket team performance against Jamaica last month. “Our young black men in Bermuda are about as prepared for life as our cricket team was for the Jamaican cricket team. Our cricket team didn’t have the tools they needed to compete — they hadn’t trained enough.”

In Bermuda there is no progression plan for our young people, he said, but there should be a big bulk of money set aside to send promising students — who clearly do not have the financial means — to travel on to college. A frustrated Mr. Richardson, mentioned the people who get scholarships on the Island are inevitably people who already had the money to go.

“But because they now have the money, there’s a young black boy around ‘Back of Town’, brilliant as hell with genius coming out his ears, that is never going to see the inside of a classroom.”

“I’ve seen guys calculate weights of several different parcels of drugs down to point-something of a gram, in their heads! They can do it. There are some brilliant guys sitting up there.”

He recalled the slogan “a mind is a terrible thing to waste,” and stressed Bermuda needs to have our own version of the United Negro College Fund.

According to Mr. Richardson, Bermuda is in a very favourable position because there is adequate money available and only a small segment of the population to be reached. “If there are 3,000 young black men in Bermuda, only 200 of them are regularly doing this crap,” he said.

When asked about the negative portrayal of black men in the media, Mr. Richardson said: “I don’t think the media perpetuates the negative, I think the media prints what people want to hear about. Do people really want to hear about the positive young black man who opened up his own business? Do people really want to hear about that? Would they buy papers if that was on the front page? That is what I mean about reconstructing our values.

“Bermudians support everything in principle and nothing in practice.”

When asked how his past impacts his profession, Mr. Richardson said: “Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts, it’s a double edged-sword.

“I have sympathy (for defendants), yes, I am empathetic towards them, yes. But at the end of the day I know a line has to be drawn somewhere, and the fact that you come from disenfranchised circumstances doesn’t give you a license to go around hurting people and endangering the safety and health of the rest of law-abiding Bermuda.”

“I understand why they are so angry, I understand why they act out, but I draw the line at saying the law shouldn’t punish them for it. If you are found guilty yes, you should go to jail for stuff like that — I went to jail for that.”

“Do I take issue with the fact that I went to jail? No. I deserved to go to jail. I earned that jail sentence. I had absolutely no right to be driving around Bermuda with a gun. I don’t like guns anymore. It’s too much power for one man.”

While he does not always support the transgressions of his clients, he does agree that: “Everybody deserves a zealous defence. Everyone deserves to be defended. Everybody deserves a fair trial — that is what I am here for.”

Mr. Richardson believes the problem will never be completely eradicated and none of the solutions will be easy, but he asserted that everyone will need to get involved. “I think people want to hear that all we have to do is X, Y, and Z and then ‘poof’ it will go away. I am sorry, it is not that simple.

“If you really want to tackle this problem we are all going to have to roll up our sleeves and get serious about the values that we are transmitting to our young people and the opportunities that we are willing to let them have.”

Charles Richardson tells what changed his life