We know that the issue of Juveniles who kill is a profoundly complex and troubling one on all sides of the question. The discussion that is happening right here in Illinois may be very indicative of where the conversation will go nationally and is a very nuanced one.

Thanks to the work and commitment of Illinois Victims families of these juvenile murderers serving life sentences, we are setting the standard for how victims should be included in the sentencing reform questions nationally.

Contents of this page:

A note of thanks to all of our friends from the bottom of our hearts! The calls and letters being sent to Springfield opposing HB 4384, standing up for the safety of our community, and the needs of victims have been just more touching than words can say! The public will on this matter is clear - victims families should not be put through parole hearings for the rest of their lives every year in order to try to free killers sentenced to natural life.

HB 4384 is no longer a threat to victims families!

The news March 25, 2008 is good. Victims families were heard- for the FIRST time since advocates for juvenile killers two years ago in Illinois started the effort to potentially free them. For that we thank Committee Chair Rep. Robert Molaro for making sure we were finally able to speak.

And not surprisingly, once the victims families present that came to tell their incredibly powerful stories of death and trauma, and were heard by those who supported the legislation to free these killers sentenced to natural life, the bill was sent back to the drawing board.

As we predicted.

What a waste all this has been. Waste of so much time, and money, and effort, and agony, and pain.

Representative Molaro is to be commended for his courage and his wisdom as the bill's sponsor for saying that he was wrong to not start with the victims last year and build a victim-sensitive approach from the start. He is a model of how to admit mistakes and begin anew. Staff from the John Howard Association would be well to follow his example.

At this meeting Rep. Molaro started over again - heard our voices, listened, and promised to follow up in the right way with whatever next steps they take.

Still no notice to the whole list of families, except for the families we recently found through the work of this website. But Rep Molaro agreed to respect principles of notification from this point forward. We hope to help see this happen in the near future.

We know that the defense lawyers and the prosecuting attorneys in the state can now focus on a serious conversation about some possible areas in legal technicalities about how certain young inmates move through the criminal justice system and look for ways to improve the process. We look forward to being able to be a part of that discussion, while safe in knowing that our loved ones' killers duly sentenced to natural life, are safely and permanently behind bars.

Representative Molaro told the John Howard Association's staff that wrote the bill that it was "off the table" as of now especially in these areas of concern:

1. No retroactivity!
2. No periodic review!
3. Victim notification promised!

Since John Howard's anti-victim position has for over the last year been the key problem, we were especially glad that they finally heard from the other experts what they have refused to hear from us.

We are gratified that everything we stood for in this conversation has been vindicated. We have in fact WON.

Thank you to the elected officials who stood with us - Mayor Daley, Representative Acevedo, Rep Beth Coulson, Rep. Chapin Rose, Rep. Dennis Reboletti, States Attorney Dick Devine, and many others.

Thank you to the media who supported victims, such as the Chicago treasure John Kass.

Thank you to the amazing law enforcement heroes, Kurt Kaner, Ron Holt, victims family members themselves, who spoke for us. And to the Illinois FOP for standing up against this bill - you are the ones who put your lives on the line every day to protect victims. Thank you for who you are and what you do.

Thanks most of all of our friends and family and supporters who were our "army" in Springfield with letters, phone calls; making possible the attention that was finally given to our voices.

The victims families of juvenile killers sentenced to natural life who dropped everything in their lives to come and speak and open their veins literally to share their pain - NOT an easy thing to do - are all heroes.

We are still angry that we had to do this, and that we had to take so much time to do something that the advocates for reform should have done from the start.

We call on the "Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children" to stop their recent anti-victim strategy and CHANGE THEIR WAYS with regards to the victims of these crimes. Resources, time and attention must be paid to the victims of these killers. We hope this process can now FINALLY begin.

It will not be easy for these advocates for the killers. They have already made huge mistakes. Their report was insultingly anti-victim and poorly written and published. They have refused up to now to do the work of notifying victims that we have asked for over the last year. They have not given a dime of their resources to the victims. Much of their approach has been insensitive and even openly at times arrogant. They must respect principles of Restorative Justice, admit and understand the harm they have caused, and now begin anew, or their project will be doomed to suffer the same fate as this ridiculously premature and ill-conceived legislation.

SUNDAY's CHICAGO TRIBUNE LEAD EDITORIAL SUPPORTS OUR POSITION ON JLWOP

www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0224edit1feb24,0,4718532.story 

ed note - Our position all along - JLWOP sentencing for younger killers should be (and IS) RARE, but occasionally, sadly, necessary. When the killer is one of those few "worst of the worst", the victims do not deserve to be sentenced themselves to a lifetime of parole hearings to keep the killer in prison. The sentencing law can be reformed to make it better, especially going forward. But not on the backs of victims, the entire leadership of our law enforcement and judicial system that worked so hard to apprehend and imprison these killers, and most of all, the public safety. The advocates of this bill have known this all along but have ignored everyone's advice and gone ahead with their reckless proposal, traumatizing victims families. HELP US DEFEAT HB 4384!
 
Chicago Tribune: Editorial 
Kids who kill 
February 24, 2008 
 
"The death penalty is not applied as often as it used to be, but one reason it retains more than 2-1 support among Americans is very simple: the fear that vicious murderers will someday be released from prison to kill again. The antidote to that fear is equally simple: sentencing such criminals to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Anyone who wants to abolish the death penalty, as this page does, has to be willing to assure the public that the worst murderers will never go free. 
 
That is obviously true for adult killers. But some people would prefer that the worst teenage killers face neither death nor life in prison. A new report by the Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children proposes that Illinois abolish such sentences for juveniles, and a bill in the legislature would do exactly that. But it would be a mistake to eliminate the option in the rare cases where it may be justified. 
 
Currently, 103 Illinois inmates are serving life without parole for murders committed when they were younger than 18. Though the report refers to them as "children," they were not really children when they carried out their crimes. Illinois allows life without parole in some cases for teens as young as 13, but none of the current inmates was younger than 14, and 86 percent were 16 or 17. 
 
The slayings for which they were convicted are unusually serious ones. State law allows the sentencing of adolescents to life without parole only if the offender commits an exceptionally brutal murder, kills a police officer, prison employee, community policing volunteer or child younger than 12, or kills two or more people. 
 
The argument against life without parole is juveniles are not mature enough to be held fully accountable for their actions. The report says they are "more likely to engage in behavior without evaluating consequences, and more likely to be susceptible to peer pressure than adults because their brains are not fully formed." They are also said to be better candidates for rehabilitation. 
 
All those claims may be true. But other realities argue in favor of life without parole. Consider some of the crimes that elicited these sentences. One 17-year-old kidnapped and raped a 5-year-old girl before throwing her out of a 13th-floor window. Another 17-year-old participated in a gang rape of a teenage girl, whom he and his cohorts stabbed dozens of times before repeatedly running over her with a car. Someone capable of such monstrous conduct at such a young age may be beyond any hope of rehabilitation. 
 
Rehabilitation, in any case, is not the only point of prison. Even more important is preventing those who have preyed on their fellow citizens from doing so again. As punishment, life without parole may seem excessive. But as a protection for potential victims, it doesn't. If the priority is protecting innocent people, life sentences are sometimes the only prudent option. They also spare the families of victims repeated parole hearings where they must relive their horror. 
 
This is not to say there is no room for revision of the Illinois law -- perhaps, say, to exclude those who are accomplices rather than actual killers, or to get rid of mandatory life sentences in favor of letting judges make the decision in particular cases. But it would be reckless to outlaw this option. Some crimes cry out for it. "
 

JOHN KASS, renowned columnist for the Chicago Tribune writes TWO columns about JLWOP and Victims

Column Number One link to Tribune website where you can post and read comments from all over the nation
www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-kass_20feb20,0,7018080.column

chicagotribune.com

Real victims of child killers will never get early release

John Kass

February 20, 2008

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

Kass Column Number Two link to Tribune where you can post and read comments also from all over the nation www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-kass_05mar05,0,4523136.column

chicagotribune.com
Bill to free young killers suffers fatal shot of its own
John Kass

March 5, 2008

To the georgeryanistas of Illinois, I have some sad news.

They were pushing a bill to grant parole hearings to 103 teen killers -- meaning minors who were convicted of the most heinous murders and sentenced to life without parole.

But now, those teenage killers, growing old and impatient for freedom, have to wait.

"It's not going to happen," State Rep. Robert Molaro (D-Chicago), the bill's sponsor, told me Tuesday. "The bill isn't ready. I don't know if it will be withdrawn or tabled. Before we do anything, we need a lengthy hearing in which victims and their families can come forward and prosecutors can have their say.

"And even then, I don't know," Molaro said.

The Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children put out a report on those 103 cases, and considered the main victims to be the killers and the killers' families, rather than the real victims, the ones who were murdered.

How do we know this?

In the coalition's report, under the heading "Those most affected by juvenile lifers' crimes" were the families of the killers. The families of the dead came second.

"It's good news for us," said Melinda Pulido, mother of Ruben Pulido, who was 13 when he and his friend Mark Lopez were shot to death while on a neighbor's front porch in June 2000.

The killer, Robert Haynie, was 16. He rode up on a bicycle with a gun. He took orders from a gang chief, Juan Casillas, who thought the 13-year-olds were rival gang members. They weren't. They were athletes and good students who were kept away from the streets by their parents.

I sat recently at the Pulido family's dining-room table, with the sisters of Lopez. They showed me photographs of the boys, and they talked about how hard it had been to keep them away from gangs, and how proud they were that they had succeeded, until the boy on the bike was told to light them up.

They showed me a child's drawing that Ruben Pulido had made. It was a mini-poster against violence, showing a street with bungalows and a chalk outline of a boy's body on the sidewalk. It was Pulido's block. He didn't know the outline would be his own.

The killers on the bikes "literally blew out a bright light in this world," said Lopez's mother, Damaris. "God knows what he could have become. His dream was to be a lawyer, and ironically, they are the ones that are slapping him in the face."

When I wrote the original column on this topic, the georgeryanistas were furious. They had supported the former governor's death-penalty moratorium as he faced federal corruption charges that would land him in prison.

They were livid, accusing me of all manner of sins, human and journalistic.

Their PR spin concerned a young man convicted of murder simply for being a lookout in a crime, not the triggerman, and being sentenced to life behind bars. But we have appellate courts for such purposes. And we have another governor, perhaps also hoping to be seen as compassionate as the federal hammers begin to fall about him.

Should the killers be forgiven? Yes. If they repent.

But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be punished to the full extent of the law. I oppose the death penalty, but this bill merely makes it easier for death-penalty advocates to call for it once again.

Another death-penalty opponent is lawyer Jeanne Bishop, a Cook County public defender who worked with her sister, Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, and others on the issue. But they believe that life without parole means what it says for those who kill. They have a Web site, Illinoisvictims.org.

Their sister, Nancy Langert, and her husband, Richard, were murdered in their home in 1990 by David Biro of Winnetka. He was 16 at the time. He stole a gun from his lawyer, broke into the Langert home and shot Richard in the head. The three shots Nancy took to the abdomen killed her unborn child. Nancy lived for about 15 minutes.

Nancy tried to drag herself toward her husband, pulled down a bookshelf, found a hatchet and banged it, hoping someone would hear, said attorney John Corbett in a 1996 civil proceeding to stop Biro from ever cashing in on the publicity by selling his story.

With her husband dead, and life leaving her own body, she scrawled a heart in her own blood on the floor, and the letter "U" and died, Corbett said.

Biro is in his 30s now. He must want freedom badly.

The group hoping to free the teen killers "sees the world as they want it to be," said Bishop-Jenkins, "and I see the world as it is, and the world is full of irreparably dangerous people."

And before we reach with a broad sweep that could release many of the 103, we should consider the dead and the families of the dead.

"We know the nightmare isn't over yet," said Priscilla Pulido, sister of a murdered brother. "There are a lot of these people supportive of the killers. But anyone willing to let a murderer free is wrong in my book, Ryanistas or any other istas."

----------

jskass@tribune.com

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune
 

FLAWS WE FOUND IN THE REPORT:
Categorically Less Culpable: Children Serving the Life Without the Possibility Of Parole Sentence in Illinois
Issued by the "Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children"

The Report can be viewed at the Northwestern Law School website

By Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins

Talking points on HB 4384 - filed January 2008 in the Illinois General Assembly

View the bill at www.ilga.gov

1. This bill could free convicted multiple murderers, some of the state's most heinous murderers sentenced to  life without parole and tried as an adults, after only ten years in prison.

In addition to the danger posed by such releases (some of them are already repeat murderers) as evidenced by parolees’ violent acts all over the nation, there are significant legal problems. Families were told that the killers in their cases could never get out of prison under any circumstances. Therefore some key components of the trials, such as the sentencing hearing transcripts, are no longer available to families and prosecutors. Due Process rights under Law, and the fair treatment required by the Illinois Constitution, 8.1 Victims Rights Amendment, would be denied to victims. We could not adequately defend our interests, and Prosecutors would be heavily burdened. We have also received a legal brief from the National Crime Victims Law Institute that details how any such bill would be a violation of our rights under the Illinois Constitution.

2. The majority of Illinois residents will oppose this bill.

To show how easy it will be to generate significant opposition to this notion of offering parole to killers sentenced to life without parole, last year when Rep Molaro introduced a similar bill (HB 1695), with only a few hours of effort sending emails and calls to friends, hundreds of calls and letters descended upon committee members offices in Springfield demanding the bill be withdrawn, which it was, without even a vote in committee. It was covered in the press. We are quite sure that if we had to launch into a full-scale public campaign against this bill that we would have overwhelming and vocal support from the entire state and even the nation. It is work we dearly do not want to do, but we will if we have to.

3. This Bill will be highly divisive, controversial, and will only generate animosity instead of solutions.

We doubt the bill will get much support but even if it is pushed, it will generate much controversy and divisiveness. It will traumatize worried victims’ families, while mobilizing every “law and order” voice, States Attorneys, Law Enforcement, and those “Tough on Crime”, against those who think this is reform.

And for this bill to pass, the state would have to decide to bring back "indeterminate" sentencing - a system wisely disposed of by Illinois in 1978. All the attendant problems would come with it: the larger bureaucracy and taxpayer expense associated with such an evaluation process. Hardest of all to understand, it would replicate the troubling "C Number problem" (the diminishing 270 or so inmates left still being reviewed by the PRB annually for parole from before 1978) that the same advocates for this bill are trying to end, complaining that it is a “broken system”. Now a whole new young group of inmates would start the indeterminate sentencing problem all over again, just when Illinois was almost finally rid of this last vestige of a most discriminatory sentencing system.

And the mechanism for review proposed in the bill is problematic - the Prisoner Review Board. To give this decision to a controversial agency, viewed by some as an over-paid patronage dumping ground, accountable to no one, instead of to Courts of Law is wrong-headed.

Freeing some of the worst killers sentenced to life is not going to be a popular idea politically. All the police, prosecutors, courts, family and community members affected by these cases, all the money and lawyers and appeals and investigation and media coverage that went into each of these killers being apprehended, tried, and sentenced – all gone. The life without parole sentence would be meaningless.

Actually, ending LWOP and determinate sentencing in Illinois is the agenda of the advocates for this bill. Also see HB 4154. Their attempts to bring back parole likely will not only lose, but can backfire and lead us into an even “tougher” system, with a renewed desire for more death penalties and executions, a troubling and expensive problem itself.

4. This bill is the equivalent of trying to pull a few weeds in the lawn by bulldozing the entire property.

There are other solutions for their concerns. This bill attempts to solve the problems of a few inmates possibly inappropriately sentenced, who could very easily seek redress in other ways such as clemency, re-sentencing hearings, or legislation that addresses the facts of their cases -such as not making mandatory LWOP for felony murder convictions, that of an "accomplice", by instead making every single murder victims family member of the 103 or so cases of JLWOP now go through parole reviews every two years for the rest of their lives -- after being promised they would never have to see or hear from the killers again.

The victims’ families are now the ones sentenced to life – a life of frequent hearings and parole battles involving the killer.

We work with the victims’ families of some of the C number prisoners, those left over from before 1978, and their annual fight before the Prisoner Review Board is more agonizing than you can possibly imagine. For legislators to have to hear their angry voices to the table in any discussion of this bill, if it is allowed to go forward, would be difficult indeed. And many of them are families of murdered police officers.

TAKE ACTION TO STOP HB 4384

This bill is set to be discussed on Tuesday, March 25, at the State of Illinois Building. We urge everyone that believes that the worst killers should serve their life sentences to contact us to make your voice heard before the legislative committee.

The madness they are proposing:

STOP THIS BILL - it makes no sense. 

PLEASE contact Representative Molaro and tell him that he should revise the bill to exclude regular periodic reviews or any kind of parole process that would regularly impact victims families for the rest of their lives.

AND PLEASE WRITE OR CALL ALL members of the Committee that will be voting on the bill and express your opposition to this bill.  The Bill has been posted for possible committee action at any time -CALL OR WRITE NOW. Click on each member of the committee's name at their website and that will give you their complete contact information.

A RESPONSE TO THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE's TWO ARTICLES ON JLWOP KILLERS

Ed Note: We were concerned when the Chicago Tribune published two stories within a week of each other that showed favor to bringing back to Illinois the huge bureaucracy of parole, something we rightly rejected as a state in 1978, in order to let some of the worst killers in the state, sentenced to natural life, out of prison early. The published story is below. The coverage in our state's largest paper was not balanced in this case. And they did not publish our response, as of Dec 31, 2007. Yes, these killers were young when they committed their horrible crimes. But they showed very real and mature culpability. And very, very few violent criminals who were young at the times of their crimes are ever judged to be able to be tried as adults and sentenced to life. Very few. With rare exceptions, only the "worst of the worst". And while we support the use of executive clemency to correct some cases of over-sentencing, most of these killers got the right sentence: Life.  Parole is a nightmare for those who are charged with protecting our public safety, for the taxpayer, and most of all, for the victims families. The more we learn about the details of these killers' crimes, the more comfortable we feel in their life sentences.

RE: Gary Marx’s “Parole Proposed for Youths Who Kill” November 27, 2007

Curtis Croft, along with two others, gang-raped a teenage girl, blindfolded her, laid her in an alley, ran over her body five times with a car, and finished her off with 40 stab wounds.

Johnny Freeman raped a five-year-old girl and shoved her out a 14-story window; when she clung to the windowsill and screamed for her mother, Freeman pushed the girl a second time till she fell to her death.

Wayne Antusas ordered the shooting that killed two eighth-grade girls sitting across from their school.

Daniel Henney and Dino Dicorpo set an arson fire which killed all five children in a single family. As the details emerged in the courtroom of how their five bodies were found huddled up against a door trying to escape, jurors and those present in the courtroom were visibly traumatized.

When courts sentenced these and other juvenile offenders to life without parole, those sentences carried with them two implicit promises. The public was promised that the killers would never be free to endanger innocent people again. Victims’ families were promised they would never have to endure parole hearings which would force them to relive their agony.

Now some Illinois legislators and activists want to break those promises. They want the legislature to undo the work of the courts; revert to a system of parole, which Illinois abolished in 1978; and give to the Prisoner Review Board, whose decisions are appealable to no one, the power to free murderers who were sentenced to life as juveniles after a mere 20 years’ imprisonment.

Are there some killers who, because of the heinous, merciless and deliberate nature of their crimes, have forfeited the right to walk among us? We believe the answer is yes.

We believe people like Evan Griffith, who as a 16-year-old used a hammer, scissors and two knives to kill his victim, and then killed again in prison as an adult, should never get out.

We believe that David Biro, who was one month shy of his 17th birthday when he murdered our sister, brother-in-law and their unborn child, and who previously tried to poison his own family, should never get out.

The argument that these murderers deserve a second chance begs the question, a second chance to do what? To kill? That’s exactly what one man serving a natural life sentence in Illinois, Scott Darnell, did when, while on a juvenile parole, he raped and murdered 12-year-old Victoria Larson.

Illinois law already provides a mechanism for criminals who believe their sentences should be reduced: Executive Clemency. Activists have told us that none of the 103 people in Illinois serving natural life for crimes committed as juveniles have even tried to seek clemency. Their reason: clemency takes too long and probably would be denied. Going to the legislature, they said, would be an easier way to get the killers out of custody.

We cannot fathom why the life sentences justly given to people who chose to kill should be imposed instead on victims’ families, who would be condemned to a lifetime of fear that their loved ones’ killers will be set free.


Jeanne Bishop
Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins
Illinoisvictims.org
 

The Chicago Tribune gives victims notification -
THE HARD WAY

To read the Tribune story, see the accompanying video, and post comments on their story, click here

Chicago Tribune reporter Gary Marx's front page story in late November on the life sentences given to killers under that age of 18 has now appeared letting the public know about HB 1695 - something we have been watching and concerned about for months.

The legislative proposal (discussed extensively below) from sponsor Representative Robert Molaro could potentially free convicted murderers sentenced to natural life because they were under 18 at the time of their horrific crimes.  That story was finally published on Tuesday, November 27, 2007.

It is important to remember that it takes severe aggravation in a murder case to make it eligible for this sentence. A "simple" murder is not even eligible for Life. The killer must have killed multiple people or been directly responsible for contributing to the deaths of multiple people, killed over an extended period of time, or have killed law enforcement officers, or killed a youngster while committing a sex offense. We have discussed elsewhere on this website the importance of dealing with legitimate innocence claims, and some clear cases of over-sentencing.  But there are only about 100 times in state history that this sentence has ever been given. And after it was used more liberally in the 1990's against the toughest gang leaders, crime rates dropped precipitously. And it should be noted that these qualifiers in an adult offender would lead to a probable death sentence.

But none of these facts about the whole picture of "juvenile lifers" appeared in the Tribune story. Nor did the "balanced" story that Mr. Marx promised: giving equal treatment to both "sympathetic" and non-sympathetic stories of juvenile lifers. Nor did the quotations he got from us and said would be included in the story in order to provide some broader perspective. None of the concerns that we raised in our interview with him were included. We do not know whose editorial decisions these were - to leave victims entirely out of this story - but it is not one we agree with.

There would not be crimes and there would not be offenders facing prison sentences if there first had not been victims - created by the actions of the offenders.

The concerns Mr. Marx cited in the story about "critics of the proposal" to end juvenile life (referencing us) were also mis-represented:

"[Rep. Molaro] tabled the bill because of sharp criticism from victims rights groups who said they were not consulted about the proposal." That is an incorrect description of the process and concerns described below on this website where we worked for months earlier this year on this bill. "Sharp criticism" first is what English teachers call a "charged word" and one that contributes to the biased slant of this article.

And it does not describe what happened. The "Victims Rights" group he references is us - IllinoisVictims.org. And we were not "sharply criticizing" Molaro because he did not "include us" in his bill. We were pleading for the families of all the victims that did not know about this bill. We were the only one of the families of the victims of these offenders that we knew of that were aware of this bill. And we were appalled at the proposed solution to this "problem" of juveniles being sentenced to life - bringing back a nightmare bureaucracy parole system - something our state wisely abolished in 1978. The very thought that victims families who were told that their cases were closed for good and forever  now having to go every year to fight the possible parole of the offender was just agonizing. We knew there had to be a better solution.

I had one tearful conversation with Rep. Molaro last spring about how awful it was that all the victims families who have not even been told that this bill exists were being asked in this proposal to face annual parole reviews the rest of their lives. This after being told - promised - that they would never have to give the killer one more thought - that he was locked away forever. I asked him to inform and work with the victims families if he wanted to reform this sentence. He promised me that he would. And he tabled the bill and emptied it of its language with a promise of future discussion. To his credit.

Read below what concerns we share with the critics of the "juvenile life" sentence" and what tactics and strategies we do not agree with. And we do note here that those promised discussions with the sponsors of the bill have not yet materialized. 

But the real bad news with this story in the Tribune is the one we were so very much hoping to avoid.

Of the 103 cases of JLWOP, most who were multiple murderers, we estimate that there are hundreds of victims family members - maybe even a thousand - who had no idea that there was any chance that their loved ones' murderer might someday be released. 

And here it sits on the front page of one of the largest newspapers in the world.

Without a single mention of, or apparently even thought of, the victims families that would be affected by this.

How many grieving mothers might pick up their morning coffee and their paper and be thrown into shock and horror at seeing this story?

We repeat - we begged and pleaded with the "Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children" (includes Northwestern University staff, Mandell Legal Clinic, DLA Piper Law firm, Human Rights Watch, juvenile justice advocates and others) members referenced in the story to find and notify the victims families of their efforts. After indicating to us that they had the best of intentions to do so, and even asking us to wait to publish the names of the victims that needed to be found - a list of names that they have had for over a year -this story comes out.

And with no sensitive notification in advance to victims families. After being asked by us for many months to please do so.

We are left to try to make this effort ourselves - to find these families and tell them about HB 1695. They have a right to decide if they want to be part of the debate and discussion about the bill. We will have to tell them, if we can find them, that we asked the advocates to do this sensitive and respectful notification of their efforts, and they chose not to.

Why would these advocates who say that they want to help these life-sentenced offenders create political opponents so wantonly? Why would they not work from the absolute outset of their efforts to create the broadest representation possible at their table? Why would they set up their bill to fail this way? Can it be that they truly don't care about really being able to actually pass any meaningful reforms? That they just want to feel good about their own efforts? That they want funding for their organizations more than they want to do the long hard work of dealing with the larger systemic problems?

We would not have wanted to believe it until the Executive Director of the John Howard Association, lead supporters of the bill, told us that positioning themselves for funding was a major motivation in this effort.

We do not have any funding, staff, or resources. The "Coalition for Fair Sentencing of Children" (we object to this pejorative term as most of the cases were 17 years old - hardly "children") has hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. They have significant legal and research staff at the DLA Piper Law Firm. They have the list of victims families names and have had it for over a year.

We are just victims families with full time jobs, mortgages, kids to raise, and no support to find these families.

And yet it falls to us.

Click Here or on the Names link to see the names of the victims families that we are trying to locate to notify them of this bill.

A statement on the issue of Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) from the founder of IllinoisVictims.org 
(see below for specific information on the sentencing issues)

All my grown life I have been a passionate advocate for and educator about Human Rights for all human beings. Because of that I respect and understand the questions being raised by some advocates regarding the LWOP sentence for juvenile offenders. We believe a thorough public discussion on this topic could be a positive thing, but only so long as the victims of those horrible crimes are fully notified of such debate, and empowered to participate if they so choose.

I am one of those victims - three members of my family were killed by a 16 year old diagnosed sociopath. He meticulously plotted and carried out their murders over a period of months. He shot my brother in law, a very good man he did not know and picked at random, and then he turned the gun on my beautiful 25 year old pregnant sister who was begging for the life of her unborn child. He shot her directly in her abdomen where she was trying to protect the baby. He did it for the "thrill" of it, and he planned to kill again months after he did it. He was mature, intelligent, from a good and wealthy family, was a top student, and to this day is unrepentant and still enjoying his mind games with those foolish enough to fall for him. He fits no stereotype of the cases that advocates against JLWOP are concerned about. He is the poster child for those rare few cases where LWOP is the appropriate sentence for an offender under 18, and he is currently serving three LWOP sentences in the Illinois Department of Corrections. My concerns about the discussion about this sentence are not, however, changed by the facts of my case. They are the concerns I have for all of my fellow murder victims' family members.

The primary purpose of the LWOP sentence, no matter the age of the offender, is to protect public safety. It also is the best sentence for victims in terms of the least amount of on-going traumatization caused by constant parole hearings. Other states that still have indeterminate sentencing hold regular hearings for parole that re-open the victims' scars constantly, causing a lifetime of never-ending engagement with the offender.

And the LWOP sentence supports a much more important human rights agenda, that we provide a viable alternative to becoming killers ourselves through the use of the death penalty. It is a reality-based observation that some are so dangerous and have done such awful things that they must be kept forever away from the rest of us, even from a young age, but I stress again, only in the rarest and most extreme cases.

As I have learned more about the approximately 103 cases of JLWOP in the Illinois Department of Corrections, it has become clear to me that there are definitely several offenders who should not have received this sentence, but because of some mandatory sentencing laws, judges had no choice.

As I work hard to advocate for victims in this discussion, I am reminded that those in Illinois who proposed HB 1695, a bill that would eliminate JLWOP, deliberately chose to leave victims out of the most important discussion that they could ever have - what should be the fate of the offender who brought untold agony into their lives? And oh, by the way, you know how the state of Illinois promised you that the killer would never walk free, and all your legal matters that were "permanently resolved" and in many cases discarded from your lives? They didn't really mean it. Now you will have to start dealing with it again every day for the rest of your lives. A life sentence for you, the victim. 

We have discussed this elsewhere on this website - the entire field of victimology affirms it -- that victims have a tragic and absolutely indissoluble relationship with the fate of the offender. This is a relationship created by the offender, about which the victims have no choice. This, perhaps better than any other definition, defines what it means to be a victim.

The original supporters of HB 1695 in Illinois only began to speak of the importance of representing victims voices in this discussion after my sister and I found out about it on our own and insisted that they do the right thing. As of now, they have only paid lip service to their concerns for victims - with no action steps or follow though. Many of these advocates have yet to earn their real human rights credentials. When they begin to care for the victims of these crimes as much as they do the "poor criminals", they will have earned the right to be at the table in this discussion.

I took action at the national level on this and began a conversation with staff at Human Rights Watch, one of the leading organizations nationally trying to end JLWOP. To their credit, they immediately agreed with my challenge regarding their neglect of victims in their campaign. At my personal suggestion, they authorized, researched, and soon will be publishing a report that I suggested the title to - "Victims Rights Are Human Rights" - at least a step in the right direction. (And a proud accomplishment for us in both victims and human rights advocacy - this publication will be a first for our movement.)

We encourage all advocates opposing JLWOP in Illinois to practice what they preach with regards to Human Rights.

We know that even discussions about the sentences of brutal offenders who caused untold trauma to a victims' family will, in and of itself, be re-traumatizing. Those advocates who propose changing the status quo and retroactively changing sentences already given due process of law are responsible to find and notify the victims of such crimes to be informed about any proposed changes before they happen. Victims families who have gone on in their lives with the understanding that the sentence is permanent and the offender can never be released cannot be given a "bait and switch" without their full informed consent.

Those who wish to propose changes to a sentence retroactively are also ethically obligated to generate appropriate emotional support and counseling for the very foreseeable emotional consequences such discussions could have on victims' families.

We do not believe that advocates who claim to be concerned only about human rights are being ethically consistent if they are willing to make changes to sentencing law that deeply hurts victims families in the process. You cannot protect the human rights of one group selectively while at the same time hurting another innocent group of people. This is the challenge that we put to that part of the human rights movement, that we have long been a part of, that seem to be so focused on seeing prisoners, not victims, as underdogs and in most need of help. The measure of their success and credibility will not be in how much they help prisoners' human rights, but how they protect prisoners' human rights while at the same time preserving the rights, dignity and well-being of the innocent victims of those criminals.

Until the public determines after full discussion that JLWOP should no longer be a sentencing option, advocates should only work to abolish it "prospectively" - for all cases from here on. Such a change would not be a violation of victims' rights, because they would know what to expect from the outset in all cases from here on.

But any retroactive changes to sentencing have to be treated completely differently because of the essential legal foundation of due process rights as well as the emotional and psychological process of the victims families and all the people involved in the prosecution of the cases.

We have been trying to point out, loud and clear, that a remedy already exists in law to address miscarriages of justice. Rather than battle a whole new bill through the state legislature, why not use the system already in place? That system is Clemency. The Constitution prescribes that the checks and balances between the branches of government can correct themselves for error. If there has been an over-sentencing, then clemency can be used to correct those cases retroactively that need correcting.

We find the proposals to change the sentencing for ALL of the JLWOP offenders somewhat disingenuous, not only because of their deliberate refusal after many requests to find and include the victims families in their years of work, but because not a single one - not even one - of the 103 or so Juvenile Lifers have applied for clemency.

They have not even tried to apply.

And worst of all, one organization, the John Howard Association, the primary group pushing for this legislation (in defiance of a larger coalition they were partners in that were moving responsibly in a "go slow" process, willing to collaborate with victims families), has admitted openly to us that their primary motivation in pushing this legislation was to position themselves for funding opportunities. Some foundations, such as the Soros Foundation, an organization I highly respect, have been giving out money to organizations who will work against JLWOP.

If these 103 or so cases need to be reviewed, a process that would be horrific for victims families, then it should be limited to a one-time only review -- in courts of law that are subject to the full accountability and due process of our legal system. But this only if all victims families are found, notified, and empowered to participate in the decision to do so. To propose anything more is asking victims to bear the full pain of the worst trauma of their lives over and over again. And would be a fundamental violation of their human, constitutional, legal, and victims rights.

What we object to vehemently is proposals that do not inform victims families of proposed changes before they push them, and take no account to the effect that such changes would have on them. I personally spent months of tears, sleeplessness, and genuine horror for the first time since my sister was killed. I was scared - for the first time in years - of the very thought that this very dangerous man could possibly walk free.  I experienced genuine re-traumatization. Other victims families will go through the same or worse.

And even more serious are concerns that some proposals would require victims families to go through regular parole-review type processes every few years for the rest of their lives, making impossible any life that allows them to heal and move on from the horrific crimes that forever changed their lives. These kinds of proposals are absolutely unacceptable. They would truly cause more harm than good. There are lots of different ways to address concerns with sentences such as these without recreating the nightmare bureaucracy of parole that was quite rightly done away with in Illinois in 1978.

The Hippocratic Oath for doctors is a good standard to follow: First, do no harm.

We have begged on several occasions, in person, in writing, and in organizational meetings, that all advocates against JLWOP take just a small percentage of the significant resources that they have and have invested into documenting the cases of the 103 juveniles lifers and send a simple letter to the victims families informing them of their study, their legislative goals, and invite them into this process. They have refused this request.

Their refusal to deal honestly, fairly, and compassionately with victim families is beyond our understanding and is costly to them in terms of credibility.

Victims families may definitely not want to participate, and can refuse absolutely to participate in any such conversations. But it is their right to make that choice themselves. That right is absolutely ensconced in the Constitution of our state.

And it is unconscionable that people who have the ability to care for those in prison, as I do, would not have enough concern for the victims of these same crimes to even tell them what they are planning. I would like to ask those advocates for Juvenile Lifers to give as much time to victims as I have to prisoners over the years. That would be a good standard for them to work for.

We do believe that JLWOP is appropriate in some few extreme cases. We believe that it is currently over-used, and should be applied only in the most serious of cases. But we know that there are some offenders so dangerous, so unrepentant and unchanging, such as truly violent sociopaths, that the LWOP sentence is the only appropriate sentence for them, especially when considering the most important factor of public safety, and the need to absolutely not submit brutalized victims families to one more moment of trauma.

We believe in the ability of human beings to make sound judgments about which of those cases do need to receive the LWOP sentence.  We do not believe that something as arbitrary as an 18th birthday should be the determination point for such decisions. We know that human development varies widely, and some people are fully developed and mature enough to be held accountable at different ages, depending on the person and the individual circumstances of each case. And from what we know of the 103 or so cases of JLWOP in Illinois, there are many for whom the brutality, and often repeated and multiple instances of horrific violence, is so dramatic, and their personal maturity adequate to provide for adult levels of culpability, that we have no doubt that almost everyone would concur that their sentences were quite appropriate.

There is an almost impossible to solve legal concern here for those who would contemplate retroactively changing some sentences. If a case is decades old, records are gone, witnesses and court officials long gone, and no viable hope of the Constitutional Right of Due Process being made available to all those involved in a given case, that it will not be possible to fairly re-try or re-sentence a case.  Clemency is an option that the system provides that would allow un-doing of grievous miscarriages of justice.

In the end we are sure that when the Illinois public has a hard look, as we have, at the facts of some of the JLWOP cases in Illinois, they will be assured that they are serving the appropriate sentence in many cases, and that other cases may be appropriate for clemency. Some of the facts of these cases are so brutal that it defies description, but a few of them are clear candidates for executive clemency. I have been working positively and pro-actively with these advocates to work towards these changes. And I will stand with them before the Governor and support the appeals for clemency in some of these cases.

A single crime cannot be adequately diagnostic for determination of LWOP. And the law should not allow it to be so. But if we are not willing to give the LWOP sentence to those who clearly need and deserve it, then they will go on in prison or after release to re-victimize even more innocent people. Such tragic stories abound in the news. We are responsible to use our best judgment to prevent this.

So, I will work to defeat all changes to current JLWOP law until and unless all affected victims families are found and informed and invited to be part of any discussion about possible changes to the law. This is not an extraordinary request - there are only a few hundred people involved here. This task is a finite one -- definitely "do-able". Once they have all been found and informed, a meaningful discussion can begin.

We call on Representative Molaro, the sponsor of HB 1695, and all the co-sponsors, Reps Turner and Collins, as well as the advocates responsible for the filing of this bill, the John Howard Association, to work with the team at Northwestern and the DLA Piper Law Firm, and others such as the Juvenile Justice Initiative, Human Rights Watch, Mandell Legal Clinic that has been funding and staffing the study of the 103 or so cases to take the list of names of the victims families that they already have and contact them all. Provide them with appropriate support. Empower their voices in this discussion. We promise to work to help them do this.

For all the advocates opposing juvenile life sentences that I have listed above to refuse this request renders your motivations and your efforts not credible, even unthinkably cruel and heartless towards innocent and deeply wounded victims of crime. That anyone could care for protecting the interests of guilty violent offenders and not those of their innocent victims . . .well, words just fail me on this point.

When these advocates have found these families, informed them, supported their inevitable re-traumatization, and empowered their voices in this process they have created, then they will have earned their credentials as human rights advocates in this situation and can stand with pride before the Illinois Legislature and Public and can propose the changes they think should happen. And we all will discuss it and decide - together.

Read on to learn about the effort to end JLWOP in Illinois.

A History of  HB 1695

January 2008  - A new bill HB 4384 is filed to take the place of HB 1695 - and its worse.

April 26, 2007 - Latest update on HB1695, a proposal that could end life without parole for juveniles in Illinois:

Representative Sara Feigenholtz removed her name from sponsorship of the bill. A big thank you to Rep. Feigenholtz for hearing our concerns when we spoke with her and withdrawing her sponsorship from this poorly conceived legislation. It was especially meaningful to us in our conversation with her that she reported having the picture of Chicago area murder victim Renee Rondeau in her office. She spoke at Renee's funeral. Renee is the daughter of our good friends Gordon and Elaine Rondeau in Georgia who are the founders of the National Coalition of Victims in Action (NCVIA) of which we are board members.

March 22, 2007

HB1695, the bill that could have made some of the worst convicted murderers in the state, serving life without parole, eligible for parole simply because they were under the age of 18 at the time of their offense, has reached a resolution that we are very pleased with. The bill has been withdrawn by its sponsor for this session with the promise that he would hold hearings and meetings on the issue that included us, and other victims voices.

Our concerns over the bill primarily centered on the question of victim notification. There are 103 families, at least, who should have been notified that the legislature was contemplating retroactively changing sentences for those whom these families were assured would spend the rest of their lives in prison. Our advocacy with the legislative sponsors was grounded in the fact that the time that an offender serves in prison is often very important to many victims' well-being. To change the rules after a sentence has been handed down by a judge in a court of law can be extremely traumatizing to the victims' families and calls into question the authority and independence of the criminal justice system.

We especially want to thank the hundreds of families and friends of the victims across Illinois and across the country, even from both coasts, who wrote, called, and e-mailed the committee to send the message that victims must be represented and consulted prior to making any changes in the sentencing of their cases.

It is a widely held misconception that it is the "offender's case" that is being addressed, but that is not the whole picture. Victims become emotionally and inextricably linked with the fate of the perpetrator and, even though the offense is officially seen as being against "the state", it is in a very real way the victim's case as well. Victims could either suffer massive re-traumatization or some sense of peace and being able to move on, depending on what happens to the offender. This is one reason why the victims' rights statutes are so important and why they must be enforced, during the original trial and afterward. One of these rights is the right to be notified and to be heard. This was our main complaint regarding the way that HB1695 was handled at first.

We would like to thank all those who heard our voices, understood the victims' issues involved, and recognized how important it is to take an issue such as this slowly and deliberately. These good people include Representative Robert Molaro, the original bill's sponsor who listened to us and engaged in responsible dialog about the implications of the bill with us. Representative Elizabeth Coulson gave generously of her time and resources to help us navigate the legislative process and her concern and support for us was deeply impressive. Other legislators who took time to meet with us, help us, and truly advocated for victims' voices in this process include Representative Dennis Reboletti, Representative Chapin Rose, Representative Patricia Lindner, and Representative Julie Hamos.

We were generally impressed by the way we were received in Springfield, with the exception of only one legislator, a co-sponsor of the bill, who was so offender-focused that she literally said to us that she "didn't care about the victims" and that we "needed to get over ourselves" in a very harsh voice. It is truly unfortunate that certain legislators are so insensitive to the victims who are innocent and yet seem to care so much for the offenders who are guilty.

We have committed to being involved in healthy ongoing dialog with the organizers and activists behind HB1695 and plan to work with them in the coming months to represent victims' interests and to bring light to the issue of juvenile life without parole. We respect, admire, and support their motives and concerns to protect the human rights of all people, especially young people, even if they commit horrible crimes.

We intend to do our best to find and notify all the victims' family members involved in the 103 cases of juveniles sentenced to life without parole in Illinois and give them the choice of whether they want to be involved in the discussions about HB 1695. If you are able to help or provide information, please help us.

We have archived all the material generated during the past few months here.
 

MEDIA COVERAGE of the JLWOP issue

To read a Chicago Tribune story on JLWOP, see the accompanying video, and post comments on their story, click here

To Read an AP reporter's stories on JLWOP nationally Click Here  and Here

The Chicago Tribune front page story on "Juveniles Sentenced to Life" 
notifies victims families the hard way of legislation that could potentially free their loved ones' killers

Hear Illinois Victims' voices in a feature story run on Chicago Public Radio on 9-7-07
Listen to the story here on the WBEZ website - use their search function for "Life Without Parole"

On Friday, September 7, 2007, Chicago Public Radio aired a story about the sentence of Life Without Parole being given to offenders who were under 18 at the time of their crimes in Illinois.

Click here to go to the WBEZ website to listen to the story. The story was featured on Morning Edition and Eight Forty-Eight. WBEZ is linking to this web page to give listeners more information.

Ed. note: WBEZ's story said that JLWOP is available in Illinois to 13 year olds. There are no 13 year olds who have ever been convicted in Illinois and sentenced to LWOP, only between the ages of 14 and 17. The vast majority of them are 17 year olds, with only a few 14 and 15 year olds.

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune has written a powerful statement bringing light to our efforts to preserve the life without parole sentence in the May 31, 2007 edition of his column. As usual, he is continuing the discussion on his blog. We encourage you to post your comments and provide feedback on this important issue of abolishing Life Without Parole in Illinois. The appropriate role of victims' voices in public discussion of sentencing issues is being debated there.

To read more about the threat to Life Without Parole in Illinois, click here to go to the Long Term Prisoner Study section of our website.
 

May 8, 2007

PBS premiered a Frontline episode entitled "When Kids Get Life", a documentary about five cases of "juvenile life without parole" or JLWOP in Colorado. This will continue to be re-broadcast at other times this month. Information on the documentary can be obtained at www.pbs.org, where the documentary can also be viewed. Advocacy information for those opposing JLWOP can be obtained at www.pendulumfoundation.org.

First an editorial note: The webmaster of this IllinoisVictims.org website is a victims' family member of a JLWOP triple murder case in Illinois.

We invite dialogue with all interested in the issue of JLWOP.  Please send your comments and thoughts and we will publish them here. You can also participate in national on-line discussion of the issue at www.pbs.org.

We understand the nature of polemics and advocacy - that being "one sided" is part of making a case and generating discussion.  We do not object to a documentary film being "one-sided" as this film clearly was. 

However, mis-information, shallow stereotypes, and unrepresentatively narrow cases and participants do not enhance discussion, only further misunderstanding.

If we accept the facts presented in the documentary at face value, several, though not all of the cases, seem to be cases of overly harsh sentencing or outright miscarriages of justice. We strongly urge the entirety of the Colorado Criminal Justice system to address these and any other miscarriages of justice, while working diligently to inform the victims and their families in the said cases, and to empower their voices and to provide significant support to them in whatever ways will help them to achieve the best possible outcome.

We have serious questions and concerns about several aspects of this Frontline episode.

We invite PBS, Frontline, the Pendulum Foundation, and the filmmaker to enter into a more balanced dialogue, and one that treats victims with all the depth and sympathy and complexity that they so richly deserve. The presentation of victims and offenders in this program was so biased that we are considering demanding equal time of PBS, a station whose programming we usually find to be above reproach.

We were pleased to see that the New York Times review that came out after this posting agreed with our critiques of this documentary.

Watching Kids Behind Bars as They Ripen Into Adults

Lessons Learned from Other States

Read a letter below from a Colorado-based juvenile justice reform advocacy group supporting IllinoisVictims.org's position on the role of victims and their right to be involved in discussions about the sentencing of offenders in their cases, despite some of our differences regarding the JLWOP sentence.

ED NOTE: We have received complaints from victims in Colorado that this may be, at best, shallow if not outright hypocritical rhetoric from Pendulum. See fuller discussion at the Forum page at www.jlwopvictims.org.

CLICK HERE to read about specific JLWOP cases in Illinois.

An Open Letter from Mary Ellen Johnson of the Pendulum Foundation in Colorado:

http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/01/living-in-hell-for-life

Analysis: Marlene Martin

ILLINOIS VICTIMS EDITORIAL NOTE: Considering that Marlene knows well how to contact us, and has never even discussed this with us, or asked us for an interview, we know that she is not really interested in finding out what is going on with the process to discuss the JLWOP sentence in Illinois. While we are trying to insure only that victims families be notified of, and included in, if they so choose, public policy discussions on matters pertaining to their cases, Ms Martin and her fellow socialists seem only interested in demonizing victims for not wanting to spend the rest of their lives going to parole hearings every two years. We have already put forward several alternative areas for reform of the JLWOP sentence, including revising the mandatory transfer mechanism by which juveniles are declared to be adults. Ms. Martin is obviously not interested in balanced, accurate, or helpful coverage of the issue. Also she is evidently not aware of extensive negotiations between lawmakers, advocates, and legal experts that is happening in the JLWOP issue in Illinois, and for whom this kind of denunciatory write-up is not helpful.

One thing we have learned in years of activism on sentencing - there are two kinds of pro-prisoner advocates that we have encountered nationally - ones that just want to hold up the poor downtrodden offenders and make noise with charged rhetoric, preach to their own choir, and poise themselves to raise money from the same few who are sadly duped into thinking this helps the many tragic cases in prison; and then the advocates for criminal justice reform that actually have some real political savvy, and who want to do the work to actually make change in public policy by helpful participation in a positive, inclusive and effective dialogue by all stakeholders and key decision-makers. We are trying to be the second. We believe Ms. Martin to be the first kind.

Living in hell for life

Marlene Martin, national director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty [1], examines a punishment that many people consider a "slow form of death"--life without the possibility of parole sentences. Mark Clements, an Illinois prisoner serving life without parole, gathered interviews for this article.

August 1, 2008 | Issue 677 [2]

"I've been locked up in Illinois prisons since I was 16. I was tortured into confessing to a crime I didn't commit. I've been here for over 25 years. To look out and think this is where I will stay for the rest of my life--now that is a living, unbearable hell."
-- Mark Clements, Chicago police torture victim, serving a juvenile life without parole sentence in Illinois

MARK CLEMENTS was arrested when he was 16 years old and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Like most juveniles sentenced to life without parole, he was tried as an adult and sent to an adult prison to serve his sentence.

Today, Mark is 43 years old. He has spent almost twice as much of his life locked up in prison as he lived free.

Ed note: To use the case of someone who is making an innocence claim as the example of what is wrong with the sentence they receive does not really logically follow. The problem with the Mark Clements case is that he has made an innocence claim and was allegedly tortured into his confession. That is not relevant to the JLWOP sentence as a public policy question.

America outstrips every other nation in the world in the number of people it puts in its prisons. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world's population, but accounts for 25 percent of prisoners.

According to a study by the Pew Center on the States, one out of every 100 adults in the U.S. is in prison or jail. And because of the racism of the American "justice" system, the numbers are much higher for people of color--if you are an African American man between the ages of 20 and 34, your likelihood of being behind bars today is one in nine.

But the U.S. stands even further apart from the rest of the world in one nightmarish aspect of its prison system--the men and women sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

There are over 132,000 people serving life sentences in the U.S. One in 10 are forbidden from ever receiving parolee, but overall, only one in four of the larger group will ever come before a parole board. Despite FBI crime statistics showing a drop in violent crime over the past decade, the number of people sentenced to life in prison has nearly doubled.

Paul Wright, the editor of Prison Legal News and author of two books on the prison system--who himself served 17 years of a life sentence--said life without parole sentences are "a death sentence by incarceration. You're trading a slow form of death for a faster one."

This kind of sentencing is virtually unheard of elsewhere in the world. "Western Europeans regard 10 to 12 years as extremely long term, even for offenders sentenced to life," says James Whitman, author of the book Harsh Justice.

And among the prisoners with life sentences in the U.S. are 2,380 people who were sentenced to life without parole as "juvenile offenders"--in other words, they were under the age of 18 when the crimes they were accused of were committed--according to Human Rights Watch.

Of these juvenile offenders, 73 were sentenced to life in prison without parole at the age of 13 or 14 years old, according to research done by the Equal Justice Initiative.

To put this in perspective, no other country in the world sentences 13 year olds to life without parole. In fact, outside of the U.S., only 12 juvenile offenders anywhere in the world are serving this sentence, according to Human Rights Watch. Seven are in Israel, four are in South Africa, and one is in Tanzania.

There are over 2,000 in the United States.

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"I'm the first to say that I made my share of mistakes in life--I'm not perfect. But life without the possibility of parole is a life-draining sentence. No matter how hard I try to better myself, I'm treated as if I am the worst of the worst. I can't sleep nights. I can't rest in my body because this one bad choice to hang with friends could cost me my freedom forever."
-- Daniel Henney, serving a juvenile life without parole sentence in Illinois

ONE THING that stands out about prisoners sentenced to life without the possibility of parole is that they don't stand out as the inhuman monsters they are often depicted to be.

ED NOTE: Oh, come on Marlene, who has EVER painted these young offenders as "inhuman monsters"? That kind of manipulative hyperbole is the kind of thing you would expect to hear only on a Fox" news" Tabloid - and is simply is not worthy of a discussion this important.

Among all prisoners with life sentences, from 1988 to 2001, 40 percent were convicted of a crime other than murder. Of juvenile offenders given life without parole sentences, 59 percent--well over half--had never been convicted of a previous crime, according to Human Rights Watch.

Antonio Nunez was raised in Los Angles, his life shaped by gang violence. As the Equal Justice Initiative described in its report "Cruel and Unusual," at the age of 14, he got into a car with two older men, one of whom had been kidnapped. A police chase ensued, and gunfire was exchanged. No one was killed; no one was even hurt. But Antonio was sentenced to life in California's San Quentin prison, where he remains today.

"He has lost all hope," his sister Cindy Nunez told Reuters. "We try to keep his spirits up by saying something will change in the law."

Rather than their alleged crimes, other factors stand out about those serving life without parole sentences. Invariably, they are poor. Many came from violent homes or suffered abuse. And an overwhelming proportion are minorities. According to Human Rights Watch, among juvenile offenders serving life without parole for crimes other than murder, every single one is a person of color.

In Illinois, Mark Clements is one of 103 juvenile offenders serving a life without parole sentence. Of these 103, 74 are, like Mark, African American; 10 are Latino and 19 are white.

Ian Manuel is one. Raised in a climate of violence and poverty, he was drawn to gang activity at a young age. At 13, he committed a robbery and shot a woman, who survived. Feeling remorseful, Ian turned himself into the police and pled guilty. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Ian has spent years in solitary confinement and attempted suicide several times. He remains in prison in Florida despite the fact that the victim has forgiven him and petitioned the court for his release.

One reason these injustices can take place is that judges are barred, under mandatory sentencing laws, to take any account of age or background information.

In Illinois, for example, where judges are required to impose life without parole sentences on defendants convicted of certain crimes, without consideration of any mitigating circumstances, several have gone on record with their misgivings.

In passing sentence in one case, Judge James Linn stated that he believed the defendant "should suffer harsh criminal consequences for acting as a lookout in this case, but to suggest that he ought to receive a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, I find to be very, very hard to swallow, to the point where I can describe it as unconscionable."

Probably the most notorious mandatory sentencing policy in the country is California's "three strikes and you're out" law, passed in a referendum of California voters in 1994. A third felony conviction automatically lands defendants in prison for 25 years to life. Since it was implemented, over 1,000 people have gone to prison under three strikes in California for non-serious crimes.

Take Santos Reyes. His "crime" was to help his cousin, a Mexican immigrant who was unable to take a drivers' test because he couldn't write English, but needed a license so he could begin working as a roofer with Reyes. For this, Santos was convicted of felony perjury.

Reyes had been convicted of two previous felonies more than a decade before--stealing a radio when he was 17 and a robbery when he was 22. In neither case was anyone harmed. In the years between, he had gotten married, had two children and worked steadily as a roofer. But because the perjury charge was a third felony, he was sentenced to prison under three strikes--where he has spent the last nine years, all for taking a drivers' test for his cousin.

"He was convicted for the crimes of being poor and Mexican," said Rachael Odes, who helps coordinate the Free Santos Reyes committee. "He's just one of many. There are so many people serving long sentences for nonviolent crimes. He's a regular guy who was trying to make a living."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"I have little hope at all. This sentence is like a death sentence. It is torture on my sanity. There's no second chances for any of us. No matter how good or bad I am, these cruel prison conditions are all I have to look forward to."
-- Paul Lee, serving a juvenile life without parole sentence in Illinois

THE STANDARD argument in favor of harsh sentencing is that it keeps the public safe. But does it?

"Studies have shown that offenders who have served over 20 years in prison rarely ever reoffend and never for a violent crime," says Linda Goodman from Citizens for Earned Release. "The recidivism rate for older inmates is less than 2 percent."

And the rest of the industrialized world, where such harsh sentences are unheard of, has a far lower violent crime rate.

The U.S. hasn't always had lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key sentencing policies. Before the 1970s, life without the possibility of parole sentences were unknown. During the 1960s, in fact, the emphasis in prison policy was on rehabilitation and helping prisoners get training and education so they could successfully rejoin society upon their release. Congress amended federal parole statues to make it possible for prisoners serving life sentence to be eligible for parole after 15 years.

But in the 1970s, this began to change. Politicians saw that "tough on crime" rhetoric could both win them votes and drive back the gains made by the civil rights and other social movements of the 1960s and early '70s.

The emphasis of new laws turned to punishing prisoners, rather than rehabilitation. In 1984, the Sentencing Reform Act eliminated parole for all federal crimes. By 2000, 33 states had abolished parole, up from 17 over previous decades--and 24 states had introduced three-strikes sentencing laws.

And more and more states established life without the possibility of parole sentences. Currently, only New Mexico and Alaska don't have a life without parole sentence on the books.

U.S. policymakers seem determined to march out of step with the rest of the world on the use of harsh prison sentences. In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on all nations to abolish life without the possibility of parole sentences for youth offenders. The margin was 185 to 1--with the U.S. casting the one and only vote against.

Efforts to win change in sentencing laws have had mixed results. In 2004, California activists organized a campaign for a referendum to amend the three-strikes law to trigger the sentence only if the third felony was a "serious" one. Leading up to the vote, opinion polls showed two-thirds support for the referendum. But a last-minute advertising blitz and campaign by conservatives like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger turned the tide, and the referendum lost by a narrow margin.

This year, supporters were unable to gather enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot again in California. But a bill to abolish life without parole sentences for youth offenders passed the Senate Public Safety Committee in April and is being considered by the full state Senate. If this legislation passes, California would join nine other states that prohibit life without parole sentences for juveniles.

In Illinois, efforts by some grassroots groups to allow juveniles with life without parole sentences to come before a parole board after serving 10 years is underway, but the attempt is being stymied by opposition from victims' rights groups.

It's long past time that life without paroles sentences were eliminated--for juveniles or adults.

"Everyday that I wake up, it's a pain knowing that I have this sentence, and if these devils get their way, I will have to be here the rest of my days. Knowing this, and being in this situation, just the thought alone will kill you from the inside out. A natural life sentence tells the public that you are a vile and insidious person, and that you possess no rehabilitative potential to reenter society and be a productive citizen. This is a bald-faced lie, and this lie can be brought to an end today."
-- Jamie Jackson, serving a life without parole sentence in Illinois

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What else to read

The Human Rights Watch study "The Rest of Their Lives" [3] documents the extent of life without parole sentences for juveniles and the impact on its victims.

The Equal Justice Initiative report "Cruel and Unusual" [4] focuses specifically on 13- and 14-year-olds sentenced to what its authors call "death in prison."

Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe [5] by James Whitman documents the much harsher sentencing policies of the U.S.

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty [6] Web site is filled packed with information about capital punishment in the U.S., and activist campaigns against the criminal injustice system.