WHEN he was just a teen, Reuben Mitchell ran from a beating at school — ruining his chances at graduation. One bad turn led to another and after years of running with the wrong crowd, he landed on death row.

Today he is a leading light within the walls of the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Kingston and is showcased by that institution as evidence that its rehabilitative programme is serving its purpose.

The smartly dressed, healthy 53-year-old with the megawatt smile on Sunday transfixed congregants attending the church service marking the launch of Correctional Service’s Week at the Faith Temple New Testament Church of God in Portmore St Catherine with his rendition of There’s Not One Broken Vessel That God Can’t Mend.

Speaking with the Observer after the service themed “Rehabilitation: Changing Lives, Restoring Hope”, Mitchell — who was born and bred in Riverhead, St Thomas — explained that a series of wrong turns and runnings with politically-aligned gangs was the reason for his near brush with the hangman’s noose.

“I was linking with a lot of bad boys. I began handling the gun, doing people things, taking people’s things and even though I got good jobs, I wasn’t staying. I worked with the Ministry of Education, Cement Company, Airport Authority, Public Works, and I drove for private people, but mi still a bad. In 1993 I was charged for murder and sentenced to hang,” he said candidly.

And that changed his tune.

“After I was placed there, on death row, I got converted. My sentence was commuted in 1997 and I had my baptism,” he told the Observer.

He is now on a journey to save others. Even his mother has been converted because of his message.

“After my baptism, I started to go on the outside to minister in churches, I go to schools to do motivational speeches. I am the co-ordinator for the ministry inside the prison. I am preaching the gospel. I work as an orderly and at the tuck shop; they trust me. I am really blessed, no one is abusing me, no one is disrespecting me. I am a respectable person inside the institution,” the former death-row inmate said.

Mitchell, who is the father of a 33 year-old-daughter and a 17-year-old son, could be paroled if an application for same is granted.

Sunday National Security Minister Senator Dwight Nelson, who addressed Sunday’s church service, said the Department of Corrections — which has responsibility for penal institutions and correctional facilities — is one of the beacons in the public sector despite the challenges it faced.

“The testimony in song of the inmate who sang this morning is a manifestation of the rehabilitation taking place. When I look at the various projects inmates are undertaking, poultry rearing, barber shops, welding shops and pig rearing I am inspired,” an obviously moved Nelson said.

Meanwhile, Commissioner of Corrections Lieutenant Colonel Sean Prendergast urged workers in the system to redouble their efforts this year to “make sure that rehabilitation in our facilities take on new meaning”.

“Many inmates and wards who have come into our care enter with many challenges, many of them with little or no hope for the future,” he noted.