Karolis, just 27 years old, is currently serving his sentence in Pravieniškės Prison No.1, a Norwegian-style TOG unit. Currently, 11 inmates have the opportunity to be here.

 

This unit focuses on the re-socialisation of repeat offenders. Karolis was put behind bars for drugs, fraud and stealing. As he says himself, he was living like a vagrant at the time, and this lifestyle appealed to him. However, after a while behind bars, the young man realised he wanted to change. He says that although he had nothing when he was free, in prison he felt as if he had lost everything.
 

 

I've been using drugs for most of my life. This is my second time in prison. Now for fraud, stealing. I needed the money for the drugs, and I liked to live like that. There were drugs, yes, but I liked the life, the people I was in contact with. I wanted to fit in with them.

 

As far as I can remember now, from the last days when I was still at the outside, I was the kind of person who would go wherever they would take me. I used to take drugs, so I would tell the women anything they wanted to hear, just so I could get in with them. Like a parasite. And those women were not alone. I'd get angry with one, I'd go to another. That's the way of life.

 

 

It all started at 16. It's all about childhood. I understand that very well now. My mother was often not around and my father used to beat me severely. There were strict rules that I had to follow. My mother was not around, so I always felt insecure.

 

That's why I realise now that in my adult life I am looking for female love. Security, care. If I am cared for, I like it, I enjoy it. But inside I feel insecure - maybe she will betray me, maybe she doesn't love me.

 

Realistically, when I first smoked drugs, my world was coloured in many different colours. I found myself in a state I wanted to stay in. I used to be scared to talk to a girl, to talk to people. The effects of drugs were giving me what I was missing. All the fears disappeared.
 

 

I was drinking alcohol with my friends in an abandoned house, and some girls came over and offered to smoke a joint. I thought, what is this? That was the first time I smoked. I threw the alcohol to the side. I started smoking, tried other drugs.

 

Soon I started stealing money from the house, taking everything out of it. I used to steal gold, take it to sell. I was living with my father and mother then. Only my mother always worked. At the age of 17, I was very angry with my father because he used to beat me. I always carried that anger inside me.

 

I was waiting for the day when I would grow up. I played sports very intensively and enjoyed it at the same time. With one thought, that I would repay him. That day came. I was angry, I got up in the morning, we went home. I said, come here. When he came, I hit him on the head.
 

Then I was thrown out of the house. Then I started selling drugs to survive on the streets. I started stealing, selling drugs. It was a loose life, which I really liked. I found a lot of pluses there.

 

I used to rob alone, and sometimes we would commit crimes with friends. I lived like that for 2 years. When I was 20, I went back to my mother, told her I wanted to change because it was bad. I started to work, I turned my life around. I worked until I was 22.
 

 

One evening, a friend called. He said, come out into the yard. I tried to explain that I was tired after work, but I went out to meet him. I go out into the yard and he has bought a car. He offered me a ride. I thought, why not, let's go somewhere, smoke a joint.

 

So we did. But that evening ended very badly. We got into an accident. It hit me directly. We jumped into the opposite lane and collided with another car. I remember pulling my legs out, there was a lot of blood.

 

I woke up later in the hospital. My first thought was - can I move my legs? My friend wasn't there, I thought he would come to take care of me, because he had caused the accident. But he was gone for two weeks. Then he turned up, and I asked him if he would help me.
 

He said he would come tomorrow and we would talk about it. The next day he comes, drops me a roll, puts the phone down. Says the numbers are there. I had to sell him drugs for money.
 

 

Yes, I started dealing while I was in hospital. People would come to visit and I would sell to them. I used to keep the weed just in the ward. Later I got on a wheelbarrow, so I could go around the hospital and sell drugs.

 

Then I was released to go home. I lived like that for two years, but I already had a police "tail". That was the first conviction. I was 23 years old then. I got 2 years for distributing drugs.
 

I found out that I had no chance of parole, I had nothing to lose, so I started hiding from the police and stealing. I lived on the street, woke up at the station, slept in the bushes. That was life. I was hiding.
 

Six months later, the police found me. I was put in a zone. I was taken to Marijampolė. There are a lot of prisoners there. I saw them taking drugs. That's why I started to use too. But I did not like heroin.

 

I was looking forward to the day when I would be released and use what I liked. I had this idea then that you don't get better in prison. That was my attitude, I didn't want to change because I liked that life.
 

I was released quite quickly. The first day I was released, I was put under restrictions - no drinking, no using, staying at home at certain times. But I drank on the first day, and two days later I did drugs.

 

I had accepted that I would live until I was 50 at most. I started dealing drugs again. When I left the camp, my parents rented me an apartment.  I managed to bypass the probation tests. I filled up on whatever I wanted there. I lived like that for 1 year and 7 months.

 

I had 3 days left before the end of my probation, and I had to take the test. But I bought the wrong juice, I filled it up. And it was discovered that there was juice in there. And I went back to jail. I thought I'd hide for a while, but I didn't. Two days later I was caught.
 

I went back to Marijampolė again. Drugs again, but so bad inside. I had nothing, but when I came here, I seem to have lost everything. There were people where they seemed to care about me, but there was nothing left. I know that nobody will wait for me, that I am of no interest to anybody. 

 

 

I was 26 years old then. I realised that I wanted to change something. I went to rehab in Marijampole. It was very difficult. I had to sit at the same table as the police officers. Someone was telling me to do this and that, and I didn't want to accept it. I had to analyse myself, recognise my feelings.
 

You couldn't curse or smoke cigarettes. You couldn't even drink coffee. That was terribly hard. In other places it gets easier with time, but there it was the opposite. It only got harder. I was there for 10 months. Then I was offered to go to Pravieniškės Prison, to TOG.

 

I thought about it for a day and said I wanted to go. Of course, I was scared, because it's not nice to change the environment. You are going into the unknown. In Marijampolė I knew everything. I arrived in Pravieniškės. There I found a family, people who care about me. I felt uncomfortable because I didn't know what to give back.

 

Here, they care for me. I asked them how they can care about me, because I am a prisoner. In many places I was treated like an animal. That's how I felt in Marijampolė. But here the officers are like friends. It was very strange. When I came here I could work. What I plan to do in freedom.
 

 

I've been working a lot on myself this year. I've read a lot of books, I've made a lot of efforts to change myself. And I have changed. And my parents can see that. They say I look different, I act different, I communicate different.

 

I get people here who support me. I can come and tell them that I am not well and we sit down and talk. That connection is made. I don't have to lie here. TOG lays the foundation for a person to come out stronger.

 

My dream used to be to rap, to make music. Sitting here, I can pursue my dream. I've been matched here with someone who helps me record music. This is a golden place. You wouldn't get that in prison anywhere else. The lyrics are about my past, my childhood, drugs.
 

 

Yes, they are waiting for me. They say, you go out, son, we will help you. They asked me if I wanted to finish my studies. They will help me financially. New ideas come up. There is no thought of going back to the old way of life.

 

Of course, it is scary. I have never lived a normal life before. I am practising here how it should be, but I don't yet see the big picture of what it will be like when I leave. In freedom, everything is different anyway. TOG is a safe environment and there will be everything.

 

I want to change. I am doing things to change. It didn't happen before. I didn't care how I looked. Now I take care of myself, I started to love myself. I used to think I was a loser. I lived in hatred since childhood.
 

I also have a younger brother. I see a fundamental difference between us. I used to get beaten a lot, but he was not touched. He doesn't drink, he goes to work. We communicate with my brother. If I have children, I will know what they need. They will need support, love, conversations. It's always easier to "shoot" them in the head and that's it. But so what? I see the consequences for the rest of my life.

 

 

Parole could be as early as this December or March next year. In December there will already be a re-application for early release. The fact is that I was not released the first time. But now I am making progress, I have no penalties. I am a good person.
 

 

Very, very good. Just talking to you makes me feel good, because I tell you about my life and I don't have to lie. And I tell it like it really is. When I was on drugs I was a grown-up kid - with my own principles, I didn't think about anything. Purely as a child. I had to be given something, I had to be taken care of, I didn't lift a finger myself.

 

 

I watched a news report on the news about a halfway house for prisoners opening in Domeikawa. There, those residents were talking about prisoners. Children will be abused, bars will have to be put up, cameras will have to be put up, because they will be taken away, everything will be stolen.
 

But some prisoners are working hard to change their ways so that they can enter the halfway house at all. Only a few can get there. You work hard to get out. You don't go stealing, that's for sure. Only selected people go there.

Text by Audrius Bareišis