2,000 Young Offenders Serving Life Terms in Jail

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1012-02.htm

Published on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 by The Independent / UK

America Has 2,000 Young Offenders Serving Life Terms in Jail
by Andrew Gumbel

Two leading human rights organisations have accused the United States of in effect throwing away the lives of more than 2,000 juvenile offenders sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole - a punishment out of step with international law but one increasingly popular with tough-on-crime US legislators.

According to a report being published today by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the United States is the only country to punish juveniles so severely on a routine basis. They counted 2,225 child offenders locked up for life across 42 American states. In the rest of the world, they found only a dozen other cases, restricted to three countries - Israel, South Africa and Tanzania.

"Criminal punishment in the United States can serve four goals: rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence and incapacitation," the report concludes, and that no punishment "should be more severe than necessary to achieve these stated goals. Sentencing children to life without parole fails to measure up on all counts."

Some American states permit the imposition of a life sentence without parole to offenders as young as 10. The youngest actually serving such a sentence are 13. Roughly one-sixth of those locked up for life committed their offences when they were under 16. Almost 60 per cent were given their life sentence for their first offence.


..more..

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. What an uncreative solution

from a very creative people. Can't we do better?

[okieinpain]

4. for some of them no. sorry I know jail time is a touchy subject around

here. but if you take away someone else's life, I have little sympathy for the perp.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Even if the "perp" is 10 years old? n/t

[Dark]

9. A ten year old who killed someone . . .

that is a hard decision.

[WI_DEM]

29. I doubt many of them are ten years old, most ten year olds would

probably be locked up until they reach their 21st birthday, but really it's a case by case thing. It is too broad of a subject to make simple judgements on all of them.

[okieinpain]

33. ok, where is there a 10 year old doing life without parole. come on

be honest.

[SteppingRazor]

40. Per the article...

the law states that children as young as 10 could do life, and that the youngest currently serving is 13.

So, the 10 is still a hypothetical, but what about 13? Should a 13-year-old kid do life in prison? Or would therapy be better for a kid who commits a heinous crime?

[liberalnurse]

2. They didn't get a life sentence

for skipping school. I would encourage one to review any of their trial transcripts to see why they were give life. I sense that protecting the public had a lot to do with it.

[G_j]

6. then you disagree with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

"Criminal punishment in the United States can serve four goals: rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence and incapacitation," the report concludes, and that no punishment "should be more severe than necessary to achieve these stated goals. Sentencing children to life without parole fails to measure up on all counts."

[Dark]

8. How does it fail on incapacitation?

[G_j]

10. I suppose if the goal was incapacitation FOREVER

then it wouldn't be a failure. :shrug:

[Dark]

12. Well, I'd much rather someone who is dangerous be behind bars

then outside them.

But I see your point. We should try to rehabilitate them, but we should not simply assume that because they were young that they didn't know what they were doing.

[liberalnurse]

13. Failure began at home and with the community.

n/t

[liberalnurse]

11. They got life for good reason.

I know of thousands of youth who have done outrageous, violent crimes that should of gotten life....Rehab is a two way street....you have to want it to make it work or at least try. There are some youths with an empty soul who will not ever be rehabilitated. To let them out after 10 years or so is an accident waiting to happen.

Many incarcerated youths have it much better in jail than the streets or from the home they were born. It sounds sad but it is the current reality. Their being in jail as juveniles places them with their role models....and thus they acclimate to the sub-culture.

[G_j]

14. "for good reason"

and you know this from attending their trials or studying their cases?
Never mind that study after study has shown beyond a shred of doubt that African Americans and the poor receive harsher sentences for equivalent crimes.

is being black and/or poor a good reason?
I guess in Amerikkka it is.

[liberalnurse]

20. I know this by being a health care

provider to the identified clientele.

[liberalnurse]

36. The poor have chosen badly at times to not

utilize the community resources available to them which could improve their status. Now, such resources are being eliminated daily across the nation. It's a complex crisis which is being ignored by this administration. Violent youths are a by-product of such negligence of the family and the community.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Obamanaut]

32. No they are not better off inside.

I too, have worked in a Department of Corrections. Seven years as a guard, two years in the education department.

I know several former staff members, (adults, not juveniles) who ran afoul of the law and are now incarcerated. They had families, homes, pets, freedom to wander about randomly. They then transgressed the laws of society, and are now incarcerated, and by virtue of whatever decision they made, they are now on the inside rather than outside. By no stretch of the imagination can one say that they have it better now than they did on the outside. These former staff members are not the only prisoners who left a better life behind. It is true that many, if not most, brought this upon themselves by their actions. It is blatantly UNTRUE that they are better off.

I knew a young man who was a Special Education student (age, under 21) at the prison where I worked in the education department. He died as a result of violence - while on the “inside“. How can it be said that he was better off “inside” than on the outside?

Another young inmate (also under 21) suffered a severe beating in the same dorm that housed the young man in my second paragraph. I knew him also, and even read a letter that he dictated to a nurse - dictated because his beating rendered him unable to write for himself. He was not disfigured or disabled on the outside, no, it was on the inside. How can it be suggested that he too is better off on the inside?


edited for spelling

[Mandate My Ass]

39. #

Many incarcerated youths have it much better in jail than the streets or from the home they were born. It sounds sad but it is the current reality. Their being in jail as juveniles places them with their role models....and thus they acclimate to the sub-culture.

This is the most racist post I have ever seen on DU, not to mention totally untrue.

[liberalnurse]

41. You are making an invalid attack.....

I have alerted the mods regarding your insults.....Read my post again.....race is not implied or ever mentioned. Your imagination has taken over in that grey matter between your ears.

[Greyhound]

3. We used to be world-leaders in criminal rehabilitation. What happened? n/t

[Dark]

7. Cough drug war cough. n/t

[Silverhair]

25. We never were the world leaders in that.

As long as I can remember, and that is a pretty good while, there have been books and magazine articles about the problem of ex-cons committing new crimes.

There was a time when Democrats were tough on criminals, but now many want to view violent criminals as a new oppressed class to be liberated.

[afdip]

15. what bullshit . ..

prison is all about WAREHOUSING. nothing more than that.

[SteppingRazor]

17. I tend to agree...

Particularly in regards to the legions of nonviolent drug offenders currently serving lengthy sentences.

But of course, nonviolent offenders is getting off the subject of the original post, as we can almost certainly say that these children given life sentences were found guilty of violent crimes -- admittedly, we cannot say that with abolsute certainty without the case files, but we can certainly say it with a reasonable expectation of being right.

[Fescue4u]

16. Alternate Title....2,000 young killers imprisoned for Life

I understand the angst of locking away a young person forever.

But lets not kid ourselves....These "young offenders" have committed some of the most heinous crimes that a person can committ.

I don't have a solution. But letting killers roam freely isnt a viable solution.

[SteppingRazor]

18. Certainly not. But I think if someone is a killer at age 10 or 13...

More would be accomplished through serious rehabilitation and therapy than would be in locking the person away forever.

[G_j]

19. In most cases, however..

"In most cases, the crime in question was murder. But about a quarter of those locked up, the report found, were not the actual murderers, merely participants in a robbery or burglary in which a murder was committed by someone else. In many American states, draconian laws stipulate that being present at the scene of a murder can be equivalent to being guilty of the murder, with punishment meted out accordingly.

The report found that while the number of juvenile offenders being sentenced to life had gone up markedly over the past 25 years, the rate of serious juvenile crime had gone down. In most years since 1985, juvenile offenders have been sentenced to life without parole at a faster rate than adult murderers."

[Silverhair]

26. No sympathy for them either.

Part of the crime - take the whole punishment as if you were the only one. I see that as completely just.

I doesn't matter who pulled the trigger. The other one agreed in advance to such a violent evil act by agreeing to be part of the criminal team.

[Silverhair]

21. Here we have another LOSING issue.

Try to go the voters crying about this and you WILL make Republicans out of marginal Democrats. The "kids" are NOT choir boys. They are guilty of some really, sick, heinous, violent crimes, and the public does NOT want them to have the chance to victimize someone else again.

Crying over murderers is how we got the "soft of crime" label, and why it sticks to us.

Question: If it could be arranged, would you take one of those youthful convicts into your home to live with you while you rehabilitated them?

[G_j]

22. answer:

I am not trained in rehabilitation of criminals, so I don't think that would work.

But consider this:
"In the rest of the world, they found only a dozen other cases, restricted to three countries - Israel, South Africa and Tanzania."

so do all of the other countries (such as all of Europe) who don't exercise these draconian measures have a citizenship that is terrorized by violent youths? Are these countries living in violent chaos because they don't follow America's example?

[Silverhair]

23. Where are your tears for the victims of their crimes?

Of course, the victims are dead and out of sight (literally) so they don't bother you.

I have no sympathy for murderers, even if they are underage.

Take this issue to the public, and watch what happens to their votes.

[Mandate My Ass]

28. Being against overly punitive incarceration is NOT being pro criminal

What about the victims? What a bunch of BS.

[Silverhair]

30. Being soft on violent criminals IS pro crime.

Your stance on wanting to take it easy on murderers because they may have been under 16 at the time they committed the murder is a stance that is for the murderer. Therefore, it is pro-criminal.

Try taking your case to the voters and watch what happens.

[Mandate My Ass]

31. whoa, back up a second

Who said take it easy? Please show me where I said that.

My stance is for society and the good of society means not making people disposable. We do not benefit from locking people up forever or by dehumanizing them like you're so anxious to do. Politicians have been successfully stirring people like yourself up forever, scaring them with boogeyman stories of incorrigible and vicious murderers who will never, ever be safe to let out of their cages. Grow up.

Punishment is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Sorry if that keeps you up at night, but even murderers can sometimes be rehabilitated and re-enter society. If their crimes are heinous enough and they demonstrate over years of incarceration that they cannot be rehabilitated, I have no problem with life without parole, but it shouldn't be automatic.

[G_j]

34. there is a vast distance

between being "easy" on somebody and sentencing them to spend their life in prison.
I seriously doubt if any of our problems can be solved thinking in such utterly black or white, all or nothing terms.

[Silverhair]

35. It was kind of all-or-nothing for their victims. Dead is permenant

Dead vs alive. Hard to get more black and white than that. They did the ultimate crime. No room for shades of grey for the people that were murdered by these hoodlums that you are shedding such tears for.

[Mandate My Ass]

37. Vigilante justice is not justice

Emotional knee-jerk reactions to crime lead to vigilante-ism. That's why in civilized societies we have a criminal justice system. So that cooler heads can prevail and act in the interest of society, rather than the interest of appeasing the bloodthirsty hordes.

Keep up the good work muddying the issue with the fallacy that not wanting someone punished far beyond the point of effectiveness and which has no benefit to society is being pro-criminal. You have no point so you have to resort to such pitiful finger-pointing tactics. :eyes:

[Silverhair]

42. They committed the ULTIMATE crime.

Or is that lost on you? They aren't petty shoplifters. They are not even ordinary murderers either. To get Life w/o parole, the murder has to be especially heinous.

In death penalty threads, I often make the argument that I would be willing to trade the death penalty for genuine LIFE sentences. LIFE as in they stay in until they die at 110 years old. Then I follow that by noting that even with the worst crimes, there will always be someone who will plea for mercy for the criminal and will cry that genuine LIFE is just too harsh a penalty.

You have proven me right.

[Silverhair]

24. Accidental duplicate - Self delete NT

[AllegroRondo]

38. Is our justice system used for punishment or rehabilitation?

That is the base of the argument.

Liberals tend to believe that criminals should, whenever possible, be rehabilitated and made to become productive members of society.

Conservatives tend to believe that criminals should be punished and made to become "sorry" for their crimes.