Melvin "Melow" Petersen is a violent, dangerous criminal with a hair-trigger temper.

Ten years ago, Petersen grabbed his 8-month-old son Jason from the mother's arms, slashing her hand with a butcher's knife in the process. A police officer, called to the scene earlier by the woman, had to stand by as Petersen used the screaming child as a shield and ran into the house.

He locked himself in the bathroom and as police kicked at the door, he stabbed Jason to death. The coroner's report showed the child had been stabbed eight times in his neck, chest and legs with the 12-inch butcher's knife.

Going wrong -- Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility on St. Croix is the territory's main prison. It has 275 prisoners in a space designed for 136. What it does not have is structured rehabilitation, counseling or training. It does have a college degree program -- although 93 percent of the prisoners don't have a high school diploma, and the prison does not have a high school equivalency program.

Detention -- Anna's Hope Detention Center on St. Croix, where pre-trial detainees are held, is at more than capacity.

Petersen already had a criminal record that included three arrests, two for assault. A year before the murder he was charged with petty larceny and aggravated assault and battery but was allowed to plea-bargain. He got a one-year sentence and served nine months.

In September 1990, six years into his 35-year murder sentence and 11 years before his earliest possible parole date, Corrections Bureau officials let Petersen out on supervised work release.

During his time in prison the convicted baby-killer had received no psychiatric treatment or rehabilitation.

An armed guard was posted to the work detail, but Petersen walked away and didn't return to prison that evening.

When police found Petersen a day later, he was sitting in a Frederiksted restaurant. The convicted killer was carrying a 9 mm gun, which police traced back to a federally licensed St. Croix gun dealer.

Petersen had something chilling to say to the officers who picked him up. He said he could have killed them if he'd wanted to because he had spotted them before they spotted him.

They charged him with escape from custody and possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Prosecutors dropped the charges. And they never brought charges against the gun dealer believed to have sold the firearm to the convicted murderer.

The Melvin Petersen case wasn't an isolated incident. For years, murderers and other violent criminals were allowed on work release --which provides the minimal supervision.

Corrections officials no longer do that, acting Corrections Bureau Director Kurt Walcott says, but easy parole policies and lenient prison terms still put dangerous criminals back on the streets.

The problems in the territory's corrections system go far beyond that.

Here's what a Daily News investigation found:

• A federal grand jury is probing to find out how convicted murderer Raphael Harris was allowed out on supervised work release although such releases for dangerous criminals had been discontinued. A Corrections officer who was guarding Harris at the time of his escape was the subject of an internal investigation and was suspended for five days -- but the suspension was taken out of his vacation time.
• Harris was never recaptured alive. He escaped first to St. Kitts and then to Orlando, Fla.
• Harris, who had been convicted of killing his wife and cutting her into small bits so her body couldn't be found, stabbed himself in the throat when Orlando police surrounded the house where he had been staying.
• Virgin Islands criminals, on average, serve less than half their sentences in prison.
• Dozens of violent prisoners are paroled each year, although prison officials say few are rehabilitated.
• 93 percent of the prison population did not finish high school. Many can't read or write.
• The territory's prisons are congested. Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility on St. Croix, the territory's main prison, was built to hold 136 inmates -- it now houses 275. The St. Thomas Detention Center, in the Alexander A. Farrelly Justice Center, was built to hold 51 pretrial detainees -- it now houses 135 detainees plus 65 convicted criminals.
• The territory has no parole officers. Federal and local probation officers, in addition to keeping track of suspects out on bail and criminals on probation, must double as parole officers. They also must prepare hundreds of pre-sentencing reports a year and monitor dozens of convicts sentenced to community service.
• Criminals on parole or probation who are picked up by police on new charges rarely have their parole revoked. That's because there is no system for police to use to inform the criminals' probation officers.
• 74 percent of those in jail had previous arrests or convictions. This figure includes those who have committed crimes as juveniles.
• The lack of educational programs and training for inmates means that most come out of prison with no additional legitimate skills and are likely to continue their criminal ways.

"The problem with rehabilitation is that we can't rehabilitate anyone," Walcott says. "We can give them the tools, but that person has to want to rehabilitate themselves."