I was 14 when I got arrested for making fake IDs : Owen’s Story

Owen (not his real name) didn’t look like someone who had messed up badly. At 22, he carries himself with quiet confidence. Serious, sharp….not a lot of small talk. Just a steady gaze, like someone who had seen more than most people his age, and he certainly has.

He grew up in a pretty good home, in the sense that his family was well-off. From the outside, things looked fine.

But when he was still in primary school, his parents split up. That was the start of it.

No one really talks about how messy a family break-up can feel when you’re young. For Owen, it left behind an emotional toll he didn’t know how to express…a kind of silence he didn’t know how to fill. So he lashed out.

Fighting, bullying and acting like nothing mattered…that was Owen’s way of coping with something too overwhelming to hold; his way of regaining control in a world that seemed out of control.

By the time he reached his teens, he and a close friend came up with a plan, which seemed clever at that time, but would turn out to be a really foolish one.

They started making fake NRICs and selling them to classmates who wanted to sneak into clubs or buy cigarettes and alcohol.

“It felt like a game,” Owen said.

“We didn’t think about what could go wrong.”

But things did go wrong…he got caught.

At 14, Owen was arrested and charged in court for fraud. But he was lucky, the judge gave him probation instead of a detention sentence, hoping to give him a chance to turn over a new leaf.

But unfortunately, that wasn’t how it went...soon after he finished probation, Owen slipped up again, by committing the same offence. The pull of the past and the thrill of rebellion hadn’t let go of him yet.

He was older now, but still making the same mistakes, and this time, it seemed like there would be no way out.

But Owen’s parents stepped in, and hired one of the best lawyers they could find. And by some miracle, the court granted him probation again.

Owen now had another shot and this second chance felt different.

“I don’t know why,” he said, “but something inside me shifted. Like…this is it. No more.”

This time, Owen was determined to stick close to his mentor. He started showing up and really began to listen and slowly, things changed.

Today, Owen is serving NS. His record has been clean ever since, and he’s thinking about going into business and marketing.

But more than that, he wants to use his story.

“I’m not proud of it,” he said. “But if it helps someone else think twice… I want to share it.”

It’s been eight years since his first arrest. He still remembers it clearly. Not to dwell on the shame, but to remind himself how far he’s come since.

We all like stories with clean endings, but the truth is, real change is messy.

Sometimes it takes falling twice.

Sometimes it takes someone fighting for you when you’ve given up on yourself.

Sometimes it’s just… finally deciding to try again. 

It’s never too late… if you don’t give up.