Clemency ruling delayed for lifers in Pa. prison

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National / World News 4:21 p.m. Thursday, September 3, 2009

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM

The Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Two Pennsylvania inmates who have won plaudits for their decades-long efforts to reduce prison violence and counsel troubled youths will have to wait a little longer to hear whether their life sentences will be commuted.

The inmates, convicted murderers Tyrone Werts and William Fultz, were the first lifers to go before the state Board of Pardons since a federal judge decided that thousands of Pennsylvania inmates sentenced to life should have an easier path toward clemency.

U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo ruled June 11 in a lawsuit seeking to overturn a 1997 state constitutional amendment that toughened commutation standards for lifers. The pardons board has appealed the ruling, leading to Thursday’s vote to delay a clemency decision for Werts and Fultz until the appeal is decided.

The inmates’ supporters, who had anticipated that the board would vote to recommend commutation to the governor, said they were stunned and disappointed.

“This is heartbreaking. This is rough. I can’t believe it,” said the Rev. Paul Werts, who presented his brother’s case. “I expected a yes.”

Despite their good deeds in prison, the pair faced incredibly steep odds. Only three life sentences have been commuted since 1997, when Pennsylvania voters — outraged over a killing at the hands of a commuted inmate — amended the state constitution. Clemency for lifers hasn’t been common in Pennsylvania since the 1970s, when then-Gov. Milton Shapp freed 251 inmates.

The1997 amendment requires that inmates sentenced to life must receive a unanimous vote of the five-member pardons board before the governor may consider their commutation request — giving a single board member the power to block any inmate’s bid. Before then, lifers needed only a majority vote to get their case before the governor.

Opponents of the referendum argue it deprives lifers of any meaningful chance to win clemency. Pennsylvania leads the nation in the number of inmates serving life sentences who were juveniles when they committed their crimes. It’s also one of only six states in which a life sentence automatically means life without parole — so commutation is the only way lifers who have already spent decades behind bars can get out of prison.

“You can’t have a right without a remedy,” said Philadelphia attorney Stephen Whinston, who represents the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a prisoner advocacy group, in its long-running legal bid to get the amendment declared unconstitutional.

In his ruling, Caputo said the pardons board may not apply the tougher 1997 standard to inmates who committed their crimes before 1997 because the U.S. Constitution forbids ex post facto punishment. The decision — the latest ruling in the prison society’s 12-year-old lawsuit — could affect more than 3,000 of the 4,868 lifers in the state’s prisons.

The pardons board has asked the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the lower court ruling. The board also asked to Caputo to stay his decision while the circuit court appeal is heard — meaning it could continue to operate under its preferred unanimity standard — but Caputo did not act on the request in time for the hearing.

Lt. Gov. Joe Scarnati, the pardon board’s chairman, said Thursday that the board had little choice but to delay decisions on Werts and Fultz because of the uncertainty over which legal standard it should use.

“We’re not clear if we need three votes or a unanimous vote in order to pardon these two lifers. And to take a vote that may conflict with a court ruling weeks down the road, I think, would be inappropriate,” he said.

The 1997 amendment was part of an anti-crime package advocated by then-Gov. Tom Ridge in the wake of a decision by his predecessor, Robert Casey, to grant clemency to convicted killer Reginald McFadden. After he was released, McFadden killed two people in New York and raped a third.

Supporters of the amendment say the murderers who make up Pennsylvania’s lifer population should face a high hurdle to freedom.

“We owe it to the victims and to society to ensure that while we do offer an avenue to clemency, it has to be a very high threshold,” said Michael Piecuch, a former prosecutor and executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. Clemency, he noted, is “not a right, it’s not an entitlement.”

Indeed, the family of Werts’ victim, William Bridgeman, opposes commutation of his sentence, according to state Victim Advocate Carol Lavery.

Werts, 57, of Philadelphia, was convicted of second-degree murder in 1975 for his role in Bridgeman’s slaying during a robbery at a speakeasy. Fultz, also 57 and from Philadelphia, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1975 in the fatal shooting of a teenager. Neither inmate was the triggerman, and both rejected plea deals that would have gotten them out of prison decades ago.

Werts and Fultz are considered model inmates at Graterford prison outside Philadelphia, where they have counseled at-risk teenagers and led efforts to reduce recidivism rates. Werts once prevented the rape of a prison teacher, while Fultz risked his life to deliver medicine to a prison staffer during a 1981 hostage crisis at Graterford.

“Allowing Mr. Werts to return to society is the right thing to do,” Upper Moreland TownshipPolice Chief Thomas Nestell III, who spent 23 years with the Philadelphia police department and has collaborated with Werts, told the board.

Fultz’s elderly mother, Barbara Fultz Green, sobbed as she begged the board to show mercy.

“I know my son, I love my son, and I’m praying every day I’ll live long enough to see him a free man again,” she said.

Calling Werts and Fultz “two remarkable men,” board member Russell A. Walsh, a psychologist, nevertheless recommended that the board postpone its decision.

The vote was unanimous.

___

September 03, 2009 04:21 PM EDT

Editorial: Parole reform

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Published: Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.

Twenty-six years ago in Florida, the Legislature passed a landmark criminal-sentencing bill that called for the gradual elimination of parole. Since 1995, no one sentenced to life in prison is eligible for parole.

Today, no inmates sentenced to state prison are eligible for early release under the conditions and supervision of the parole system.

The changes occurred in response to inconsistencies in the application of parole policies, recidivism by inmates granted release and widespread dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system.

Still, there are several reasons for Florida to reconsider its blanket policies against the use of parole.

One of the most compelling reasons is Florida’s status as the state having by far the most juveniles, 77, imprisoned for life for crimes that didn’t involve homicide.

A bill filed by state Rep. Mike Weinstein, a Republican who works in a prosecutor’s office, would make 68 of Florida’s 100,000 inmates eligible for parole. Those inmates were convicted of “non-homicide” offenses committed when they were 15 or younger and have served at least eight years.

As Lloyd Dunkelberger of The Sun’s Capital Bureau reported last month: “Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.”

The prevailing idea that juveniles who commit serious crimes should “do the time” is difficult to overcome. Even Weinstein agrees that juveniles facing life imprisonment made a “major mistake,” and some were convicted of heinous crimes (such as rape).

Yet, a state and society should also recognize that juveniles so young that they aren’t permitted – for their own good – to drive a car, buy cigarettes or alcohol or enter into contracts, ought to be given some considerations in sentencing and have an opportunity for rehabilitation and redemption.

Weinstein’s bill would provide, but not mandate, those opportunities and a chance at parole under strict conditions. A bill in Congress – HR 2289 – would do the same.

Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of parole for inmates convicted as youths is this: Though Florida has some of the toughest penal codes in the nation – inmates must serve more than 85 percent of their sentences – thousands of adult inmates are released from prison every month. They are released with few, if any, conditions and little post-release oversight; either because their sentences, for serious offenses, expire or because of prison overcrowding.

The Department of Corrections has recognized that policies for releasing inmates is insufficient to protect public safety and give ex-prisoners a chance to be productive and crime-free. To that end, the DOC has turned two prisons into “re-entry institutions” that offer basic education, substance-abuse treatment and lessons in skills needed to transition into life on the outside.

A new, improved parole system would help the DOC choose the inmates best suited for release and then monitor their behavior, while keeping those beyond hope incarcerated.

Whether or not the juveniles serving life terms for non-murder charges would be suited for parole and release from prison, no one knows. Weinstein’s bill would at least let the Parole Commission make that determination.

Salisbury Teen Gets Life Sentence for Murder

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Written by Kye Parsons

Posted: Sep 3, 2009 11:38 AM

SALISBURY, Md.- A Salisbury teenager will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of a 25-year-old Salisbury woman.

A Wicomico County Circuit Court judge on Wednesday sentenced 16-year-old Kenneth Alvira to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder. He was also given 30 years in prison for armed carjacking with that sentence to run consecutively with the life term.

A jury found Alvira guilty in July of the fatal stabbing of Anitra Pirkle which occurred earlier this year.

Authorities say that on Jan. 22, Alvira and two women forced Pirkle to drive them from Salisbury to a Delmar, Md. field where they are accused of stabbing her six times with a large sword or dagger before abandoning her there to die.

During Alvira’s trial, prosecutors presented evidence that tied Alvira to Pirkle’s car as well as the weapon used to kill her. In his defense, Alvira claimed that he did not stab Pirkle but blamed one of the women. But Alvira’s explanation did not convince the jury which only took a few hours to find him guilty of murder and related charges.

A jury in August convicted 19-year-old Brianna Brinkley of first-degree murder in Pirkle’s stabbing death. Brinkley is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 23.

Twenty-year-old Brittany Barkley, who was also arrested in connection with Pirkle’s slaying, is scheduled to go to trial on Sept. 28.

Alvarado teen sentenced to life without parole for killing store clerk

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Posted Wednesday, Sep. 02, 2009

By MARTHA DELLER

[email protected]

An Alvarado teenager has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2008 robbery-slaying of a 52-year-old convenience store clerk.

A Johnson County jury deliberated about an hour Friday before convicting 17-year-old Scottie Louis Forcey of capital murder in the July 23, 2008, shooting death of Karen Burke, a clerk at the Shell Travel Center off Interstate 35W in Alvarado.

State District Judge Wayne Bridewell then sentenced Forcey to life without parole, the only punishment option since 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court banned death sentences for defendants who were 17 and younger at the time the crime was committed.

Forcey will be the fifth Texan under 18 sentenced to life without parole, according to defense attorney Bill Mason, who unsuccessfully challenged the constitutionality of that sentence at a pretrial hearing.

Mason cited a new law adopted by the Legislature this year that changes the punishment for those teenagers to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. But the law applies only to crimes committed before the new law took effect Tuesday.

Forcey was 16 when he was accused of walking into the store where Burke was mopping the floor early one morning and shooting her in the head without saying a word. During a four-day trial in the 249th District Court, District Attorney Dale Hanna and Assistant District Attorneys Martin Strahan and Larry Chambless called more than 20 witnesses, including Burke’s daughter, Forcey’s brother and girlfriend and a number of forensic experts who linked physical evidence to Forcey.

Forcey’s brother, Billy, and several other witnesses testified that Forcey made statements about the crime when he returned from the store.

A .22-caliber handgun believed to have been the murder weapon was found beneath an abandoned house near Forcey’s home, and clothing that matched that worn by the gunman captured on a store surveillance camera was found under a vacant house near Forcey’s home, witnesses said.

Review Florida's parole policies

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Opinion

Legislation aimed at inmates convicted as juveniles is a start

Published: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, August 31, 2009 at 8:25 p.m.

Parole isn’t popular with the public — even if it’s used sparingly — and politicians know it.

Twenty-six years ago in Florida, the Legislature passed a landmark criminal-sentencing bill that called for the gradual elimination of parole. Subsequent changes in state law mean that, since 1995, no one — not even juveniles — sentenced to life in prison are eligible for parole. Today, no inmates sentenced to state prison are eligible for early release under the conditions and supervision of the parole system.

The changes occurred in response to inconsistencies in the application of parole policies, recidivism by inmates granted release and widespread dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system.

So, it’s no surprise that an effort to reauthorize the possibility of parole in a limited number of cases — involving inmates who committed crimes when they were juveniles — failed during this year’s session of the Legislature and faces tough resistance next year.

Yet there are several reasons for Florida to reconsider its blanket policies against the use of parole.

One of the most compelling reasons is Florida’s status as the state having by far the most juveniles — 77 — imprisoned for life for crimes that didn’t involve homicide.

Unusual punishment

A bill filed by state Rep. Mike Weinstein, a Republican who works in a prosecutor’s office, would make 68 of Florida’s 100,000 inmates eligible for parole. Those inmates were convicted of “non-homicide” offenses committed when they were 15 or younger and have served at least eight years.

Florida’s practice of sentencing juveniles to life in prison without a chance of parole will be tested in a case that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court in November. The question before the court will be whether Florida’s practice violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

Research by Florida State University’s Public Interest Law Center shows the practice is certainly unusual.

Florida has the third-highest number of inmates in the nation, so it follows that the state would have a lot of juveniles in prison. But, as Lloyd Dunkelberger of the Herald-Tribune’s Capital Bureau reported last month: “Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.”

The prevailing idea that juveniles who commit serious crimes should “do the time” is difficult to overcome. Even Weinstein agrees that, at best, juveniles facing life imprisonment made a “major mistake” and, at worst, were convicted of heinous crimes (such as rape).

Yet, a state and society should also recognize that juveniles so young that they aren’t permitted — for their own good — to drive a car, buy cigarettes or alcohol or enter into contracts ought to be given some considerations in sentencing and have an opportunity for rehabilitation and redemption.

Weinstein’s bill would provide, but not mandate, those opportunities and a chance at parole under strict conditions. A bill in Congress — HR 2289 — would do the same.

Thousands released every month

Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of parole for inmates convicted as youths is this: Though Florida has some of the toughest penal codes in the nation — inmates must serve more than 85 percent of their sentences — thousands of adult inmates are released from prison every month. They are released — with few, if any, conditions and little post-release oversight — either because their sentences, for serious offenses, expire or because of prison overcrowding.

The Department of Corrections has recognized that policies for releasing inmates is insufficient to protect public safety and give ex-prisoners a chance to be productive and crime-free. To that end, the DOC has turned two prisons into “re-entry institutions” that offer basic education, substance-abuse treatment and lessons in skills needed to transition into life on the outside.

A new, improved parole system would help the DOC choose the inmates best suited for release and then monitor their behavior, while keeping those beyond hope incarcerated. Whether or not the juveniles serving life terms for non-murder charges would be suited for parole and release from prison, no one knows. Weinstein’s bill would at least let the Parole Commission make that determination.

This story appeared in print on page A6

Some hope for Florida's juvenile offenders

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bilde

Terrance Graham, above left, is serving a term of life without parole for a juvenile burglary conviction. Kenneth R. Young, above right, was 15 when he received four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in armed robberies.

By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER H-T Capital Bureau

Published: Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, August 29, 2009 at 7:38 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE – Florida’s decision to impose some of the harshest sentences in the country for juveniles who have committed crimes short of murder is a direct outgrowth of the state’s move to abolish parole for all prisoners.

But while some applaud the imposition of lengthy sentences without any chance for parole for violent and repeat adult criminals, others say imposing the same severe penalties on younger criminals is unfair. Some lawmakers are backing a move that would offer a chance for parole for a select group of juvenile criminals who are facing long prison sentences but committed their crimes when they were 15 years old or younger.

It would include juveniles serving sentences of more than 10 years for crimes ranging from murder to lesser offenses, such as robbery and battery. And it potentially could offer some relief to 14 of the 77 juveniles now serving life sentences without parole for non-homicide crimes — which represents the largest group of non-homicide juvenile lifers in the country.

But the “Second Chance for Children in Prison Act” may face a difficult time when the Legislature convenes in its annual session next spring. Earlier this year, a similar bill died in the House, where some legislative leaders appear to be reluctant to back off the state’s rigid stance against giving any prisoners a chance at parole.

Rep. Mike Weinstein, a Republican state prosecutor from Jacksonville who sponsored the House version of the bill, said the measure will have to overcome the Legislature’s resistance to show any retreat from decisions made in the last few decades to eliminate parole for all new prisoners.

“The Legislature worked so hard to limit parole, it’s going to take an effort to crack the door again. It’s a tiny crack but it’s still a crack,” Weinstein said. In presenting the measure to the House Public Safety and Domestic Security Policy Committee earlier this year, he called the bill a “matter of hope.”

“I’m here basically because I think this is the right opportunity to look at whether we can in fact rehabilitate anybody,” he said.

Weinstein has refiled the bill for the 2010 session. The bill, which was drafted with help from Florida State University’s Public Interest Law Center, would be limited to offenders who committed their crimes at the age of 15 or younger and who have served at least eight years in state prison.

In order to be eligible for the parole review, the juveniles would also have to have completed a high-school equivalency program and have a blemish-free prison record in the two years before the review.

Paolo Annino, the FSU law professor who heads the public interest center, said while lobbying for the bill over the last two years, he has found legislative support for the idea of offering some relief to juvenile criminals.

“The whole idea of an opportunity for rehabilitation for minors, that resonates with the American public,” Annino said.

The scope of the measure is limited. Legislative analysts estimated that would currently restrict the parole review to about 68 prisoners. Weinstein said although the bill would make that small group of prisoners eligible for a review of their sentences by the state Parole Commission, it would not guarantee their release. Instead, he said it would be up to the parole commissioners to decide which prisoners would get relief based on criteria such as whether they had a history of violence or whether they were the principals or less involved individuals in a crime.

“The bill is looking for those inmates who made one major mistake in life,” Weinstein said. “We’re looking for the ones who really were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Rep. Ari Porth, a Democratic state prosecutor in Broward County and member of the House committee on public safety, said he applauded Weinstein’s “courage” in pushing the bill.

“Every day I work with kids who are in the deep end of the system and there are many, I believe, who deserve a second chance,” Porth said.

Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, who voted for the bill in the spring session, said she considers herself tough on crime and believes people “need to be held accountable.”

“I also have five children and I know that children can do stupid things if they’re with the wrong people at the wrong time,” she said.

In opposing the bill earlier this year, other House members said they were concerned about releasing potentially dangerous criminals.

Rep. John Tobia, R-Satellite Beach, said while the majority of the select group of juvenile prisoners might be successfully rehabilitated, he was worried about the potential for releasing others who might commit more crimes.

“As a taxpayer, I’m more than willing to pay the $19,308 (a year) that it takes to keep these people behind bars for the time that the judges saw fit to leave them there,” he said.

Weinstein said it may take time to convince House members to back the measure since some view it as a retreat from the state’s decision to essentially end parole for all prisoners beginning in 1983 with further restrictions imposed in the 1990s.

As for some of the prisoners who might qualify for the review, the FSU law students and legal scholars are championing the case of Kenneth Young, who received four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in five armed robberies in the Tampa Bay area in 2000.

Young, who is now 24 and has served eight years in prison, was 14 when the robberies, which occurred over a month’s time, began. He said he was coerced into the robberies by a 25-year-old crack dealer who told him his mother owed him money.


This story appeared in print on page BN1

All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.

The Lost Juvies

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Youth offenders given sentences of life without the chance of parole may yet have a shot at release. But are we doing enough for them?

By Mary Ellen Johnson
Posted: 08/30/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

“In America, we recycle our trash and throw away our children.”

Those words were spoken by a mother whose 16-year-old son is serving life in prison without possibility of parole. His sentence isn’t unusual. America is the only nation on earth that sentences its children to die behind bars.

We have thousands of throw-away children wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in prisons stretching from coast to coast. In 2006, Colorado became the first state to reverse that trend, by allowing parole after 40 years. It is a modest beginning.

In 2007, Gov. Bill Ritter created the nation’s first juvenile clemency board, which has been universally lauded. However, it is distressing that not a single juvenile has yet received a pardon or commutation. Still, by creating such a board, Ritter acknowledges that, from their brain development to their capacity for rehabilitation, children are different from adults. Theoretically, those who were convicted of crimes that occurred when they were 14, 15, 16 or 17 deserve a second look.

But political reality intrudes.

We all have different versions of right and wrong. It seems wrong that a kid gets sentenced to life for a hit-and-run that generally garners probation or a few years in prison for an adult. Or that a 38-year-old man receives 16 years in jail for setting his father on fire over a minor argument (the dad later died), while a 15-year-old who kills his molesters is put away for life. Yet other people looked at the same set of circumstances and had no trouble trying, convicting and incarcerating those cases.

I know several of these young prisoners and believe they can be rehabilitated. But Americans are a merciless people. We talk about redemption but we don’t practice it — certainly not for a young gang member who participates in a drive-by shooting or for a frightened teen who cleans up after his friend kills his abuser.

The facts are spun and re-spun on all sides. There is not much compassion, but a lot of hatred. And pesky political realities, such as: Where’s that 15-year-old’s constituency? Who will speak for him?

Who even cares?

If I were Gov. Ritter, would I ever give any of these kids a commutation or clemency? What’s in it politically for him — beyond our assertion that redemption should carry as great a moral weight as retribution?

We at the Pendulum Foundation believe we’ve found something that’s “in it” for everybody. We can give some of these kids a second chance plus promote public safety plus practice redemption and rehabilitation rather than retribution. Our solution?

Programs.

Programs inside, and then more programs inside. Cognitive behavior therapy. Life skills. College. Right now, young inmates serving life without parole get few programs. However, the same bill that lowered life sentences also mandated that these young prisoners get the same opportunities for programs as those who are eligible for parole.

We think it’s important to provide them with a rainbow of proven programs. Not only will these (mostly privately funded) programs make those young inmates far better candidates for a commutation or clemency, all studies agree they also transform thinking and lives.

Once these offenders successfully complete all programs, we propose that they be given a conditional commutation or review. Inmates serving life without parole would then complete their re-integration into society via a privately funded rehabilitation center.

The entire process will take years. We don’t care. What we want to do is get them out of prison and firmly down the road to rehabilitation. Twenty years ago, when America was a different nation, these kids never got much prison time anyway. They received treatment, were rehabilitated and released back into society where most of them obeyed the laws, worked hard, paid their taxes, and disappeared into middle-class society.

We ask that some of our young inmates receive that same opportunity — an opportunity for a second chance.

We believe that it’s long past time when we recycle only our trash. It’s time we recycle our children, as well.

Mary Ellen Johnson is executive director of the Pendulum Foundation, a Denver-based juvenile-justice advocacy group.

Detroit Public Radio: Deb LaBelle and others discuss juvenile prosecution

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Demarco Harris and juvenile prosecution

Thursday, August 20, 2009

[audio:DT_8-20.MP3]

It’s midnight on August 1st and 24 year old Trisha Babcock is sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked car.  12 year old Demarco Harris points a loaded gun at Babcock and a struggle ensues.  Babcock is now dead of a gunshot wound to the chest…and Harris is charged with felony murder and armed robbery.  The Wayne County Prosecutors office has announced that Harris could be sentenced as an adult.

In the first hour of the show we will hear from guests on all sides of the spectrum.  Brian Murrow is Deputy Chief of the Wayne County juvenile division.  He will explain to us the technical process of juvenile prosecution.  Jennifer Bishop Jenkins is an academic and founder of IllinoisVictims.org .  Deborah LaBelle is a civil rights lawyer and project director of Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative.  Dwayne Betts is the author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival and Coming of Age in Prison .  Al Taylor is founder of Peace Project

Teens' life sentences likely began much earlier

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Kathy Silverberg
Published: Friday, August 14, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.

The faces that stared back at me when I picked up my Sunday newspaper off the driveway this week made my heart ache. In fact, the article that accompanied the photos of teenagers who will be spending the rest of their lives in prison was so disturbing that it haunted me for the rest of the day.

But my discomfort is of little significance when compared with the pain these young people inflicted on their victims or the sadness their families must feel at knowing their children will never come home or, above all, the despair of facing a life behind bars. There are no winners in this story of a state that sentences more juveniles to life without parole — for crimes other than murder — than all the other states combined.

An argument can be made that these young people — six of them were under 15 years old when they committed their crimes — must be imprisoned to protect society. Their crimes are not insignificant. In many cases, they involved violence, and most of those sentenced to life were repeat offenders.

Further, the case for rehabilitation weakens when recidivism statistics are examined. A 1996 study by Northeastern University researcher Donna Bishop found that juvenile offenders in Florida, once they are sentenced in the adult system, are more likely to continue a life of crime.

But as unsettling as the practice of sending children to prison for the rest of their lives appears to be, the real tragedy likely began many years before they even considered breaking the law. It probably began at the beginning, when the circumstances of their birth dramatically reduced their chances for a successful life.

And as much as there appears to be a need to reform the sentencing procedures for juvenile offenders, there is a far greater need to address the factors that severely limit the opportunities for too many children.

Study after study has pointed to the correlation between poverty and achievement, to the need for intervention even before a child is born to assure a safe, healthy environment.

Yet strained resources on every level, from the home to the halls of government, limit the opportunities for children.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 20th annual Kids Count report, released earlier this year, made the case in clear terms: “Overwhelming research finds that growing up in poverty — especially deep and/or sustained poverty, particularly in the first years of life — has crippling and lifelong consequences.” In Florida, one child in five is born into poverty.

The Kids Count report pointed out that poor children who lack enrichment opportunities “are many times more likely than other children to become ensnared in the justice system and less likely to find stable employment or form durable families.” Thus the cycle of poverty continues.

Research by the Educational Testing Service illustrates the learning gap that occurs early on and favors children from more privileged households. By age 4, a child whose parents are professionals hears some 20 million more words than a child in a working-class family, and about 35 million more words than children who grow up in poverty.

A conference in 2005 sponsored by the Legal Momentum’s Family Initiative and the MIT Workplace Center attempted to quantify the value of investing in early childhood education. It found that every $1 invested in quality early child care and education returns $13 to public coffers, based on savings in social services and criminal justice expenses as well as increased tax collections from now-productive adults.

If there is any question about the altruistic reasons to pull children out of poverty, the economics should carry the day.

The American dream is built on a belief that through hard work and self-sacrifice, anyone can rise to the highest levels in this democratic system. But how many more dreams could come true, how many more productive Americans could be out there making a difference in the world, how many more parents could be providing for their families, if all children were given a fair chance to succeed.

More than 100 years ago, Mark Twain saw the value of educating young people. He wrote:

“When I was a boy on the Mississippi River there was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped building the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.”

Perhaps the time has come to build fewer jails.

Kathy Silverberg is the former publisher of the Herald-Tribune’s southern editions. E-mail: [email protected]


This story appeared in print on page A10

Giving up too soon on juveniles

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Florida’s ‘life without parole’ punishments need to be reined in

Published: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 3:58 p.m.

Society cannot afford – and should not accept — criminal justice disparities like those detailed Sunday in a Herald-Tribune article, “Florida Justice: Tough on Youths.”

The story, by Capital Bureau reporter Lloyd Dunkelberger, noted that “Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.”

These “life without parole” punishments slam the door forever on teenagers — sometimes before they’ve even finished middle school.

That is far too soon to give up on young people whose minds and morals are still in the formative stage.

Some of these youths probably could be rehabilitated with education and therapy while in prison. But when there is no hope of ever getting out, there is little incentive for self-improvement or good behavior.

Another disturbing aspect to the punishment is that, often, it is not meted out in an even-handed fashion. As Dunkelberger detailed, one youth involved in a robbery got life without parole, while another in the same crime was sentenced to three years.

That violates the principle of fairness in sentencing.

Perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear lawsuits against Florida’s harsh juvenile punishment policy, will rein in the practice.

If not, advocates can look to congressional legislation. HR2289 was introduced this spring.

According to a summary by the Congressional Research Service, the bill would require states to enact laws that give juveniles a “meaningful opportunity for parole or supervised release at least once during their first 15 years of incarceration and at least once every three years thereafter …” The individuals would be reviewed to see if they still pose a threat.

Clearly, there are young killers so hardened to a life of crime that they test the limits of society’s compassion. But for those juveniles convicted of far lesser violence, a “lock ’em up and throw away the key” sentence is simply too destructive.

Florida and the nation must find a better way to deal with these offenders.

This story appeared in print on page A8

All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.