Over a year ago, the premier revealed an alarming statistic from the 2000 Census ? 94 percent of prisoners were male, and 92 percent were black.

In Bermuda there is no shortage of contributing, successful, powerful and law-abiding black men, however there is evidently a problem occurring within the lives of a small minority of young black men, those who can be seen sitting on the wall or behind a jail cell.

Government made the first initiative to find out what had lead to this situation and what could be done to reduce its effect and thus brought in sociologist, Roy Wright, to conduct a study focusing on factors, such as history, families and the community, education, economic status and opportunities, criminalisation and victimisation.

While Prof. Wright conducted his study, gave summer reporters Nadia Arandjelovic and Catherine Hay, the daunting task of doing their own research ? through talking to the people who understood the subject the most.

They talked to a series of black men, some young black men, some fathers of young black boys, political activist, teachers, politicians, parole officers and role models to get diverse opinions, experiences and solutions on the topic.

Throughout this week these articles will appear in , starting with today?s interview with former convict and lawyer, Charles Richardson and the perspective of a young black male.