Connecticut abolishes life without parole for children

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Connecticut has abolished life without parole as a sentencing option for all children! Gov. Dannel Malloy signed SB 796 on June 23, 2015, just days before the three-year anniversary of the Miller v. Alabama decision, which abolished mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children.

SB 796 goes further than Miller, however. It requires judges to consider both the hallmark features of adolescence as well as the scientific differences between child and adult offenders whenever children are sentenced in adult court for serious crimes. Furthermore, the law establishes special parole eligibility for children, ensuring review after serving no more than 30 years, and specifying youth-related factors for the parole board to consider.

Finally, the bill provides earlier parole eligibility for over 200 individuals who are currently serving sentences for offenses committed while they were children.

Connecticut is the 14th state to abolish life without parole for children, and the ninth state since Miller.

 

In New Haven, police chiefs from around the nation talk about juvenile justice

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NEW HAVEN >> More than 30 police chiefs flocked to Yale this week, coming from as far as California, Colorado and as close as the New Haven Police Department, as the city played host to a three day symposium on juvenile justice.

The Law Enforcement Leadership Institute of Juvenile Justice holds these conferences across the country. They are sponsored by the International Association of Police Chiefs and funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

“We are looking to influence law enforcement executives and law enforcement leaders to make juvenile justice a priority,” said Aviva Kurash, senior program manager for IACP.

On Wednesday, Mayor Toni Harp gave the opening remarks and welcomed the many chiefs and other attendees to the city. Topics included law enforcement and school collaboration, serious and chronic offenders, racial and ethnic disparities and building trust with young people. The three day symposium was a mix of speeches and roundtable discussions.

“We’re asking them to change their philosophies and not just put in projects or programs or training, though that’s an important piece of it. We’re talking about culture and philosophy,” Kurash said.

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By Ryan Flynn June 24, 2015

 

Too many children serving life sentences in Pa.

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When I volunteered at Abraxas Youth Center in Franklin County years ago, I heard heart-wrenching stories from the young people there.

Some talked about how their parents used them as drug mules, forcing them to transport contraband with the expectation that, as children, they would face lighter penalties if caught. Many children felt torn because they loved their parents but didn’t want to return to abusive, drug-addicted lifestyles after they left detention. One young man said he was scared to death of being being caught one more time because he would be sent to adult prison for a minimum of 25 years for his “third strike.”

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that it is unconstitutional to sentence children to life in prison without parole for nonhomicide crimes. And three years ago today, the court held that it is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment to impose automatic sentences of life without parole on someone younger than 18 at the time of a crime.

Still, too many of our young people are being held in prison until they die.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama, Pennsylvania had sentenced nearly 500 children to life in prison without the possibility of parole — more than anywhere else in the world. The Legislature passed a law giving judges the option of keeping these sentences in place. That’s backed up by a state Supreme Court ruling that the Miller decision does not apply retroactively. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to a similar policy in Louisiana during its October term.

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By Jean Bickmire 6/25/15

I’m Proof Kids Don’t Need Extreme Sentences to Pay Debt

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I work with children who have parents in prison and with parents who are serving time. Much of my work focuses on effective parenting and child abuse prevention. When we reduce the occurrences of child abuse, we also help prevent violence by these same children later in life.

I do this through my job with PB&J Family Services, a New Mexico nonprofit organization. My main responsibility is to manage a home visit parenting program for families with young children. In the evenings and on weekends, I work in a new program that provides children with developmentally appropriate activities and their parents with resources while they are waiting to visit someone who is incarcerated.

I’m passionate about these issues because I grew up behind bars. I entered the juvenile justice system when I was just 13 after I was accused of participating in the murder of another girl my age in my hometown of Clovis, N.M. Despite the difficulties of that experience, I grew from a child, acting out impulsively as a result of my own unresolved trauma, into a responsible, working mother active in my community. I was released at 18 and have never looked back.

As we observe the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. Alabama, which found it is unconstitutional to impose a mandatory sentence of life without parole for a crime committed by a person younger than 18, it is a good time to think about how we hold accountable children who are accused of serious crimes. This accountability should be age-appropriate and trauma-informed.

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By Francesca Duran-Lopez June 24, 2015

Javier Stauring learned that troubled youths 'weren't so different' from him

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LOS ANGELES — In 2005, Javier Stauring was giving a presentation about the American juvenile justice system to an international conference in Germany when one of his comments caused a stir.

“I had said, ‘In California we give life sentences to 14-year-olds,’ and since it was being translated to everyone wearing headphones, they all turned around to ask the translators for a repeat, as if they had mistranslated,” he says. “After they found out I had not misspoken, they gathered around me dumbfounded to press me, ‘How can this be?’

“One woman said, ‘We live in the land of the Holocaust, and we look to the US as the model of what can and should be achieved in people being able to turn their lives around. How sad that you cannot give your own children that chance.’ ”

The story reminded Mr. Stauring of his shock the first time he visited a children’s unit at the Los Angeles Central Jail in 2001. He found 14-year-olds in isolation in dark cells, almost 24 hours a day, for months at a time.

After having a conversation through a thin hole with a young girl in solitary confinement who was curled up on a bunk next to a stainless steel sink and toilet, he told her he would do whatever it took to get her out of there.

But when he began trying, he found a judicial detention system that for years had been increasing penalties for youths.

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By Daniel Wood June 18, 2015

What It's Like To Spend Father's Day In Prison

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Father’s Day produces a complicated mix of emotions for the thousands of fathers in the U.S. who are imprisoned.

“Father’s Day is a uniquely difficult time of the year for me,” dad and prisoner Bruce W. Harrison wrote in a note sent to The Huffington Post via nonprofit organizationFamilies Against Mandatory Minimums. “It reminds me of the fact that I’ve served more than 20 years in federal prison. Decades of my life spent behind bars instead of time I should have been spending with my family.”

Harrison and three other dads shared their feelings of pain, remorse and hope with HuffPost in the heart-wrenching notes below, which have been edited for length and clarity.

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By Simon McCormack June 20. 2015

56 youthful offenders may get hearings after court ruling

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LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas’ highest court ruled Thursday that an inmate serving life without parole for a killing he was convicted of as a juvenile deserves a new sentencing hearing, a move that opens the door for new sentences for 55 other former youthful offenders.

The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a Lee County judge’s order granting a new sentencing hearing for Ulonzo Gordon, who was convicted of capital murder in the 1994 slaying of a West Memphis man. In the unanimous ruling, justices ruled that a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting mandatory life without parole sentences for youthful offenders should apply retroactively.

An attorney for Gordon said the ruling means all 56 inmates in Arkansas serving life without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles are entitled to new sentencing hearings.

“It should affect all the others. All the others were being held up pending the decision on retroactivity,” said Jeff Rosenzweig, who is representing most of the 56 former juvenile offenders.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office said it was reviewing the court’s decision.

“Only those inmates who were juveniles when they were sentenced to serve a ‘mandatory’ life sentence are affected by today’s decision in Kelley v. Ulonzo Gordon,” Rutledge spokesman Judd Deere said in an email. “The attorney general’s office continues to review this decision from the State Supreme Court.”

Justices said Gordon was entitled to the same relief as Kuntrell Jackson, an Arkansas inmate who was given a new sentence as a result of the 2012 U.S. high court ruling.

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By Andrew Demillo The Associated Press June 18, 2015

Jacqueline Sparks: Don't throw away key on young

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As it stands, children and adolescents under age 18 in the state of Rhode Island can be sentenced to life without parole. This defies both common sense and science.

It is well known that the brains of children and adolescents are not fully developed. Specifically, the pre-frontal cortex, that portion of the brain responsible for weighing consequences of one’s actions and making calm and considered decisions, does not mature until the early 20s. Any parent of a teenager knows what this means. However, the part of the young brain that develops earliest is the amygdala. This is the more primitive, “emotional” part that reacts to stress and seeks excitement and immediate reward.

Given these neurological factors, it is easy to see why young people, in particular adolescents as they move away from parental oversight and come under the influence of peers, are prone to risky behaviors.

Complicating the picture is the fact that as many as 80 percent of juvenile lifers have reported witnessing violence. In many instances, this occurs from early ages and extends into adolescence. Witnessing violence is a known cause of childhood trauma with serious consequences for children’s emotional, social and physical development. Research indicates that immature brains develop hyper-arousal adaptations to trauma that can become maladaptive in different life contexts. Exposure to violence not only traumatizes, it teaches the young person that violence is a way to solve problems.

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By Jacqueline Sparks June 16, 2015

60 Organizations Pen Open Letter to NY Governor and Legislature: Raise the Age Now

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(June 15, 2015) In an open letter to be hand-delivered to Albany today, sixty state-wide and national organizations including international human rights groups, social workers, faith-based organizations and children’s advocates, strongly urged the passage of Raise the Age legislation before the session ends this week.

Currently, New York remains one of only two states that still prosecutes all 16- and 17 –year- olds in the justice system as adults. New York also houses 16- and 17-year-olds in adult jails and prisons, where they are at grave risk of suicide, rape, and physical abuse, and often do not receive appropriate services.

With days remaining until the 2015 legislative session ends, it is imperative that there be no further delay in raising the age.

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June 15, 2015

States that ban JLWOP

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Alaska
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Kansas
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Montana
Nevada
Texas
Vermont
West Virginia
Wyoming