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Lifers as teenagers, now seeking second chance - International Herald Tribune
by ubernoir at 8:01 am EDT, Oct 17, 2007

In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenter.
Indeed, the United States stands alone in the world in convicting young adolescents as adults and sentencing them to live out their lives in prison. According to a new report, there are 73 Americans serving such sentences for crimes they committed at 13 or 14.
Mary Nalls, an 81-year-old retired social worker here, has some thoughts about the matter. Her granddaughter Ashley Jones was 14 when she helped her boyfriend kill her grandfather and aunt — Mrs. Nalls's husband and daughter — by stabbing and shooting them and then setting them on fire. Jones also tried to kill her 10-year-old sister.
Mrs. Nalls, who was badly injured in the rampage, showed a visitor to her home a white scar on her forehead, a reminder of the burns that put her into a coma for 30 days. She had also been shot in the shoulder and stabbed in the chest.
"I forgot," she said later. "They stabbed me in the jaw, too."
But Mrs. Nalls thinks her granddaughter, now 22, deserves the possibility of a second chance.

i really don't understand how a nation that considers itself civilised is so trapped by the lowest common denominator, so punitive, justice isn't about revenge and retribution -- where is the element of redemption -- your policies on the death penalty and imprisonment play to the most base instincts -- you live in such a violent culture (note per capita murder rates by country) but don't blame access to guns just be increasingly punative and in the case of children who have less control over their emotions say well they develop a conscience at age 2 or 3 -- but the ability to control anger and rage comes with maturity -- especially for young men to overcome the early flush of testosterone and in the case cited in the article recommended the girl , the child, had been sexually abused, so is it a surprise she had rage? Of course what she did was truly terrible but beyond redemption? I wonder where a person's humanity is, their understanding that we are flawed creatures that can develop, if they believe such things. It seems to show little understanding of what it is to be human. Morality is founded on surplanting our darkest urges and emotions - lust, greed, anger - with restraint, tolerence, forgiveness and reason. Conscience rides the beast of our animal ancestry. So many millions of years of evolution are not so easily overcome - especially for a child - especially for a damaged child. Your criminal justice policies seem to appeal to and reflect the darkest and most animalistic instincts of the crowd.

RE: Lifers as teenagers, now seeking second chance - International Herald Tribune
by Decius at 9:31 am EDT, Oct 17, 2007

ubernoir wrote:
i really don't understand how a nation that considers itself civilised is so trapped by the lowest common denominator

Perhaps I'm in a cynical mood this morning.

Americans are spectacularly good at seeing people who are different as not being entirely human, particularly if they are poor and brown. There is a history of that here with slavery. Its presently largely focused on hispanic immigrants. A significant percentage of the population believes they can forcefully remove 12 million people from this place and there really will be no problem at all with that. No mass refugee camps. No firefights. No terrorist attacks. No piles of bodies. Just like the other times in history when this sort of thing has been attempted. Oh, wait... (Fortunately, the people in charge are not so stupid as to actually do something like this.)

Americans define themselves with their toughness. Having sympathy for criminals is weak. No one wants to be perceived as weak. The meme here is that caring about what happens to people is the opposite of thinking. The conservative movement paraphrases this as "liberals feel and conservatives think."

The first republican presidential debate involved calls for doubling the size of Gitmo which was met with cheers and applause. Who do they want to throw in there? If the military had more POWs wouldn't Gitmo already be larger? They don't know. They don't care. They want to punish their enemies. If there aren't anymore to punish they'll make more.

The reason the wheels aren't flying off the bus here is that the two party system effectively constrains the development of radical fringe movements run by people who aren't smart enough to know that a program of ethnic cleansing is probably a bad idea in the long run.

But occasionally people get a clue. Apparently, preventing gay couples from visiting eachother in the hospital is now out of vouge in spite of the fact that it was a core element of the 2004 election. I don't know where or when people changed their minds about that, but its just not polling well anymore.

And the idea of freedom is fairly engrained in the culture here. The present form of the reactionary movement is Ron Paul's candidacy, which is libertarian. There is something heartening in that. Its reactionary but its not evil.

Of course, most people really don't understand what the word "freedom" means. I've been told that when the Supreme Court declares laws unconstitutional they are restricting the "freedom" of the people to enforce their will via the legislature. Thats a conception of the word "freedom" that will get you all the way to mass graves.

Read this.