Thursday, October 13, 2005
2000 Young Americans Serving Life Terms
Do as I say, not as I do —the US talking to the world about democracy, fairness, equality. But the reality is this:
America Has 2,000 Young Offenders Serving Life Terms in Jail
By Andrew Gumbel
October 12, 2005, The Independent / UK
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article318840.ece
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.
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.
The imposition of severe sentences on juvenile offenders has
coincided with a general crackdown on crime in the United
States over the past generation. Politicians have found that
it pays electoral dividends to advocate an attitude of "lock
'em up and throw away the key".
As a result, state and federal legislators have introduced
ever tougher regimes of mandatory minimum sentencing,
including one notorious law in California whereby even non-
violent offenders can face life without parole if they are
caught three times. One of the mantras often heard in
political circles is that offenders should do "adult time for
adult crimes".
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch said it was inappropriate to
deny the possibility of rehabilitation to teenagers.
Sentencing them to life inside a prison removed motivation to
pursue an education or any self-improvement. Being in an
adult prison rather than a juvenile facility also exposed
them to a heightened risk of assault and rape.
Sentencing children to life without parole is forbidden under
the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which has been ratified by every member state except the US
and Somalia. Out of 154 countries surveyed in the report, 13
were found to have laws on their books permitting life
sentences for minors, but nine of these had never actually
imposed one.
Peter A, 29, lifer: A sentence disowned by the judge forced
to deliver it
Peter A, a black child from a broken home in Chicago, was
just 15 when he went on a crime spree, ostensibly to recover
some stolen money and drugs stolen from his older brother.
The outing resulted in the shooting of two men, but Peter
neither participated in nor witnessed the killings.
In fact, he later testified, one of the murder victims was a
friend of his who had nothing to do with the original theft.
While the shootings took place, Peter was sitting in a van
parked in the street. He was charged with "felony murder"
anyway because he had accompanied the two killers and, by his
own admission, stolen the van in which they travelled to the
house where the murders took place.
The trial judge, Dennis Dernback, sympathised with Peter,
calling him a "bright lad" with rehabilitative potential and
accepting that, in the absence of his father, he had fallen
under the bad influence of his older brother. Judge
Dernback's hands were tied, however, by Illinois' sentencing
code.
In his written sentence condemning Peter to life imprisonment
without parole, he stated: "That is the sentence that I am
mandated by law to impose. If I had my discretion, I would
impose another sentence, but that is mandated by law."
Peter (not his real name) is now 29. He has obtained a high-
school equivalence diploma and completed a course in legal
studies. He works in the prison library. The only strike
against his disciplinary record has been a single bad report
- for the offence of possessing an extra pillow and stashing
extra cereal in his cell.
2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
_______________________________________________________
portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news,
discussion and debate service of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to
provide varied material of interest to people on the
left.
America Has 2,000 Young Offenders Serving Life Terms in Jail
By Andrew Gumbel
October 12, 2005, The Independent / UK
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article318840.ece
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.
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.
The imposition of severe sentences on juvenile offenders has
coincided with a general crackdown on crime in the United
States over the past generation. Politicians have found that
it pays electoral dividends to advocate an attitude of "lock
'em up and throw away the key".
As a result, state and federal legislators have introduced
ever tougher regimes of mandatory minimum sentencing,
including one notorious law in California whereby even non-
violent offenders can face life without parole if they are
caught three times. One of the mantras often heard in
political circles is that offenders should do "adult time for
adult crimes".
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch said it was inappropriate to
deny the possibility of rehabilitation to teenagers.
Sentencing them to life inside a prison removed motivation to
pursue an education or any self-improvement. Being in an
adult prison rather than a juvenile facility also exposed
them to a heightened risk of assault and rape.
Sentencing children to life without parole is forbidden under
the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which has been ratified by every member state except the US
and Somalia. Out of 154 countries surveyed in the report, 13
were found to have laws on their books permitting life
sentences for minors, but nine of these had never actually
imposed one.
Peter A, 29, lifer: A sentence disowned by the judge forced
to deliver it
Peter A, a black child from a broken home in Chicago, was
just 15 when he went on a crime spree, ostensibly to recover
some stolen money and drugs stolen from his older brother.
The outing resulted in the shooting of two men, but Peter
neither participated in nor witnessed the killings.
In fact, he later testified, one of the murder victims was a
friend of his who had nothing to do with the original theft.
While the shootings took place, Peter was sitting in a van
parked in the street. He was charged with "felony murder"
anyway because he had accompanied the two killers and, by his
own admission, stolen the van in which they travelled to the
house where the murders took place.
The trial judge, Dennis Dernback, sympathised with Peter,
calling him a "bright lad" with rehabilitative potential and
accepting that, in the absence of his father, he had fallen
under the bad influence of his older brother. Judge
Dernback's hands were tied, however, by Illinois' sentencing
code.
In his written sentence condemning Peter to life imprisonment
without parole, he stated: "That is the sentence that I am
mandated by law to impose. If I had my discretion, I would
impose another sentence, but that is mandated by law."
Peter (not his real name) is now 29. He has obtained a high-
school equivalence diploma and completed a course in legal
studies. He works in the prison library. The only strike
against his disciplinary record has been a single bad report
- for the offence of possessing an extra pillow and stashing
extra cereal in his cell.
2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
_______________________________________________________
portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news,
discussion and debate service of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to
provide varied material of interest to people on the
left.
