Thank you to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice for this photograph.
I was at the movie theater the other day and witnessed something we’ve all seen at some point in our lives: a group of kids trying to get into a rated R movie. I overheard the theater employee lecture them on the appropriateness of following rules and why the movie was not appropriate for their young minds.
Kids can’t see certain movies. They can’t vote, drink, smoke, gamble, or drive until they are a certain age. They can’t even buy certain video games without their parents’ permission. But when it comes to punishing kids, the criminal justice system chooses to ignore their youth and the appropriateness of certain punishments. In California, a kid as young as 14 years old can be sentenced as an adult. Even more shocking, kids in California (who can’t see rated R movies) can receive sentences of LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE (“LWOP”).
Senator Leland Yee’s SB 399 “Fair Sentencing for Youth” recognizes that children are fundamentally different from adults and should be given the opportunity to demonstrate their rehabilitation. In certain limited cases after careful review, a judge may grant a petition to allow a young person to appear before the parole board after he or she has served 25 years. It does not guarantee release. It does provide young people with the hope to change their lives around.
SB 399 needs your support! We need you to call your Assemblymember TODAY to urge him or to vote YES for this important legislation. Click here to find your Assemblymember. Here is a script you can use:
Hello, I am calling to support a bill.
It is SB 399.
It is coming up for a vote in the Assembly soon. Would you please let the Assembly Member know I called to urge him/her to vote yes?
I believe young people should get a chance to work towards rehabilitation and to prove that they have changed. (If you’re a teacher, a parent, a victim of violent crime, or anything relevant, add that.)
Currently, there are more than 270 kids serving LWOP in our state. The United States is the only country in the world that hands out this kind of sentence to children. Some states like Texas have actually abolished LWOP for kids. SB 399 provides California with the opportunity to move in the right direction. There are no throwaway children.
3 Comments
Thank you for bringing our attention to this important issue. As a parent, a former high school teacher and a victim of violent crime, I am appalled that it is still legal to imprison our children as adults and to imprison them with adults.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which the US helped draft but is one of only two countries in the world which have not ratified the Convention, explicitly recognizes the child’s potential for and rights to rehabilitation, the unacceptability of sentences that deny children the opportunity to make changes for the better over time, and directly forbids sentencing children to the death penalty or life sentences without parole (FN1) (FN2).
According to Amnesty International, in over 30 states, convicted children are sentenced to adult prisons with adult inmates, exposing them to physical and sexual abuse by adults (FN3).
Article 37(a) states: “Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age (FN1) (FN2).”
The purpose of sentencing a child to incarceration according to the CRC “shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.” The incarceration should consider “the child’s age and the desirability of promoting the child’s reintegration and the child’s assuming a constructive role in society; care, guidance and supervision orders; counselling; probation; foster care; education and vocational training programmes and other alternatives to institutional care. It should also include measures to ensure the child’s ability to eventually “challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty (FN1) (FN2).”
Our youth want to work and to earn money legitimately to keep themselves from trouble in the streets and to gain independence from their parents. American children are pushed to gain work experience before during and immediately after college to be considered for universities and jobs. I understand the drive to work hard and the benefits of doing so early in life as a learning experience on the path towards adulthood but we must never mistake children for adults.
References:
1) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm;
2) http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11578/section/9; 3)http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=B0275B42F3B4C25380256900006933EF
Thanks, Jennifer, for your article and your tireless work for California’s most precious and vulnerable asset: our children. And thanks, Tammy, for bringing your valuable perspective!
It seems unfair to punish some of these juveniles with life without parole especially when it’s guilt by association, some of they youths have never had a chance to prove they are productive adults now, they were only youths which does not excuse the crime but it’s a known fact that youths do not have the mature ability to make good decisions at there age, they should be given at least a parole date, even the worst of the worst criminals have parole dates, why not our youths who have shown that as adults they are and could be productive members of society, my son is one of them and it is unfair to hold on to a sentence that is so harsh.