A second chance for juveniles }From A Public Defender

A second chance for juveniles Posted: 23 May 2013 Think about when you were 14, 15 or even 18 years old. You may have been the jock, the smartypants, the nerd, the weirdo, the hot chick, the best friend or home schooled. Think about the worst thing you did those years. Now imagine that the worst thing you did if it was legal was deemed inappropriate by society. Inappropriate to the tune of 20 years in jail or 30 years or 40 or 60. Or just remember that time you bullied someone or you stole a lipstick or you made fun of a teacher or you took your dad’s car and went for a joyride or you made up stories about that girl because she wouldn’t make out with you. Now, thinking about yourself, do you cringe? Have you spent time over the years wondering who that kid was and being glad that you’re not that anymore? Have you spent any time thinking boy, I was a douche back then, but I’ve grown and changed? We all have. The only difference is that some of us are stuck in jail for extremely long sentences for things we did when we were barely out of middle school. CT mandates that all children above the age of fourteen, charged with serious felonies, are automatically treated as adults and exposed to adult sentences, ranging from maximums of 20 years to 60 years. And there are about 170 people who are currently serving such sentences for things they did between 14-17. A new bill would change that and it just passed the State House of Representatives and heads to the Senate. Basically, the bill does this: it makes all people sentenced when they were between 14 and 17 eligible for parole consideration after they’ve served 60% of their sentence, but only if the sentence is 20 years or greater. Almost all of these crimes are currently not eligible for parole or eligible for parole at 85% of their sentences. So why this different, lower requirement for children? Because they’re children. Because they’d have served longer in prison than their adult counterparts and because their brains aren’t as developed when they’re 14-17, making them less culpable. As the United States Supreme Court said in Miller v. Alabama: Because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform, we explained, “they are less deserving of the most severe punishments.” Graham, 560 U.S., at 130 S.Ct., at 2026. Those cases relied on three significant gaps between juveniles and adults. First, children have a “`lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility,’” leading to recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking. Roper, 543 U.S., at 569, 125 S.Ct. 1183. Second, children are more vulnerable. To negative influences and outside pressures, including from their family and peers; they have limited control over their own environment , and lack the ability to extricate themselves from horrific, crime-producing settings. Ibid. And third, a child’s character is not as “well formed” as an adult’s; his traits are “less fixed” and his actions less likely to be “evidence of irretrievable depravity. Id., at 570, 125 S.Ct. 1183. … And this lengthiest possible incarceration is an “especially harsh punishment for a juvenile,” because he will almost inevitably serve “more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison than an adult offender.” Graham, 560 U.S., at ___, 130 S.Ct., at 2028. The penalty when imposed on a teenager, as compared with an older person, is therefore “the same … in name only.” Id., at ___, 130 S.Ct., at 2028. So when that 14 year old child is sitting in a jail cell, 30 years later at the age of 44, someone can bring him out and say: are we punishing the same person? Have you changed? Can we let you out now? Can we treat our children at least somewhat like the children they are when they commit crimes? Or are we that intellectually bereft of nuance that the minute we say the word criminal, we lose sight of all context and character and instead stick blindly to our fear and desire for homogeneity in understanding the other? “Many members are concerned about appearing to be soft on crime, State Senator Eric Coleman] said. Don’t you think we oughta check in on them just once, after we’ve left our kids locked up and warehoused for over a decade or two, to see and say ‘hey, have you learned your lesson yet’? Or do you leave your kids in permanent time-out? apublicdefender.com

Fighting For My Freedom Christy Phillips} In Prison Since She Was 15

http://christyphillips308.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/my-name-is-christy-clinton-phillips/ Fighting For My Freedom Christy Phillips About Christy My name is Christy Clinton Phillips. I am being held in prison under violations of my civil and political rights I need help in fighting for the protection of these rights. The issue of my case in short form, is as follows: I was 15 yrs. old when my crime occurred and was sentenced to life in prison. According to the UN INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS(to which the United States is a party to) AND CRC(Convention/Committee on the rights of the child). a life sentence for a child is explicitly prohibited under article 37(a) of CRC and(article 6 the right to life, survival and development) paragraph 11 and paragraph 77. Under article 14(g)4 the court procedure must be such as will take account of a juvenile persons age and the desire ability of promoting their rehabilitation. In my case, the court did not take my age into consideration nor did they promote rehabilitation by sentencing me to LIFE in prison. “LIFERS” in prison are mostly denied access to rehabilitative services because of the lengthy sentence. Article 14(g) also prohibits law enforcement to cause a child to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt. In my case, I reported a homicide, I was held in the lounge area of the Rialto Police Station over night and interrogated the next day. I requested to the interrogating officers three times if I could be taken to a telephone to contact my mother I was told that I could not contact anyone outside the police station until after I was interrogated. After being held away from home and in a police station over night, I was intimidated confused and tired so under duress I cooperated with them I was under the impression that I would not be allowed to go home until after I cooperated with them. During my interrogation the detectives made it clear that they wanted me to admit guilt and would not end the interrogation until after I had done so, I did and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison based on that coerced confession. Letter of support:Christy Phillips W-94100 C.C.W.F. P.O.BOX 1508 512-15-2up Chowchilla, Ca. 93610 www.gofundme.com/20h29c www.change.org/petitions/justice-for-christy-clinton-phillips-cdc-w-94100. http://tobtr.com/3046483 http://christyphillips308.wordpress.com http://pinterest.com/irishgreeneyes2/christy-phillips/ https://twitter.com/ChristyPhillip1 https://www.facebook.com/christy.phillips.129 https://www.facebook.com/groups/190341227781152/ Share this:

Free Christy Phillips and Reform JLWOP

Free Christy Phillips and Reform JLWOP This group is dedicated to Freeing Christy Phillips' and abolishing JLWOP. For more info visit: http://www.christyclintonphillips.blogspot.com/

California: Tomorrow they are meeting to discuss the Youth Sentencing Bill

California: Tomorrow they are meeting to discuss the Youth Sentencing Bill: The Senate Public Safety Committee hearing on SB 260 (Hancock) is in Room 3191 of the state capitol beginning at 9:30 am. You can find the agenda here: http://spsf.senate.ca.gov/agenda. You can attend in-person or listen to the live stream from the link provided in the agenda. SB 260 is scheduled as the fourth bill to be heard during the session (although this often changes on the day). If you attend in-person you can provide very brief public comment in support of the bill after the expert testimony on the bill has been heard. If you need more information about the bill, I recommend you contact the bill’s sponsors – the Human Rights Watch. Additionally, they list ways you can get involved on the Fair Sentencing for Youth website: http://www.fairsentencingforyouth.org/take-action/ Hope this helps! Sincerely, Selena Selena Teji, J.D. Communications Specialist Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ)

Letters From Juveniles Serving Life In Prison

The Tragic Lives Of So Many Young People Facing Life In Prison http://en.radiovaticana.va/m_articolo.asp?c=677778 Letters from prison - Radio Vaticana (Vatican Radio) Los Angeles County has one of the highest youth incarceration rates in the country. Up to 90% of the county’s juvenile justice youth are Latino or African American, and up to 70% of incarcerated youth nationally are said to have some kind of disability. After witnessing the tragic lives of so many young people facing life without parole in a juvenile justice system where little rehabilitation takes place and with frighteningly high recidivism rates that continue into adulthood, Jesuit Father Mike Kennedy decided to set up the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative (JRJI) to provide support and hope to juveniles with life sentences. Through the Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a series of meditative prayers helping people find God in their everyday experiences, the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative provides tools that allow prisoners to find healing and forgiveness and to recognize their lives have meaning and purpose. When the young boys at the juvenile detention facility in LA heard of Pope Francis’ wish to celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Rome’s Casal del Marmo prison with the young inmates there, many of them expressed their desire to participate from afar and in close solidarity to what the Pope was going to do in another juvenile hall. To do this they have written letters to Pope Francis, thanking him for his gesture of love and service, praying for him – as he has asked all of us to do, describing the sadness of their lives in detention, and asking for prayers to help them endure the darkness and hopelessness of their situations… As father Kennedy points out, some of these youngsters will spend the rest of their lives in prison. We welcome their voices and publish the letters that will be read at a service Thursday evening with the Director of Novices and 11 Jesuit novices, each one washing the feet of an inmate at the juvenile hall where kids are sentenced as adults. Dear Pope Francis, Thank you for washing the feet of youth like us in Italy. We also are young and made mistakes. Society has given up on us, thank you that you have not given up on us. Dear Pope Francis, I think you are a humble man. When you read this letter you will have washed the feet of other kids like. I am writing this letter because you give me hope. I know one day with people like you us kids won't be given sentences that will keep us in prison for the rest of our lives. I pray for you. Dont forget us. Dear Pope Francis, I don't know if you have ever been to where I live. I have grown up in a jungle of gangs and drugs and violence. I have seen people killed. I have been hurt. We have been victims of violence. It is hard to be young and surrounded by darkness. Pray for me that one day I will be free and be able to help other youth like you do. Dear Pope Francis, Tonight we pray for all victims of violence. The families of people we have hurt need healing. Our families need healing. We are all in pain. Let us feel Jesus' healing tonight. Dear Pope Francis, I know the same youth feet that you wash are like me. Drugs have been part of me life for so long. We all struggle to be sober. But you inspire me and I promise to be sober and help others with the cruel addiction of crystal meth. Dear Pope Francis, My many friends are in two different maximum security prisons in one of our states 33 state prisons.Calif. I am writing to tell you that I feel bad that more youth of color are in prison in our state than any other place in the world. I am inviting you to come here next year to wash our feet, many of who have been sentences to die in prison. God bless you. Dear Pope Francis, I read that the harshest sentence that a youth can receive in Italy is 20 years. I wish this was true here. I hope I hear back from you. I have been catholic and glad I am catholic because I have a pope like you. I will pray for you every day because we need examples of God like you are in this violent world. Dear Pope Francis, I am glad you picked the name Francis. When I was little I read about St.Francis. He is a cool saint. He was a man of peace and simplicity. I am praying to you that you pray that we have peace in our gang filled neighborhoods. Dear Pope Francis, When Jesus washed the feet of his friends he gave an example of humility. I have been raised to believe that it is only with respect in hurting your enemy that you are a man. Tonight you and Jesus show me something in this washing of the feet something very different. I hope we kids learn from this. Dear Pope Francis, I have never been to Rome. I do not know if it is near Los Angeles because all my youth I have only known my neighborhood. I hope one day I will be given a second chance and receive a blessing from you and maybe even have my feet washed on Holy Thursday. Dear Pope Francis, I know you have a good family. I am writing this letter to you because I know that my family is suffering because of me. I know have done some bad things but I am not a bad kid and when last year in our big state we not a new law called SB9 this made me family happy because this is a beautiful message that we kids deserve a second chance. Dear Pope Francis, From reading I know that us kids are capable of making decisions like older people do. I have seen pictures of brains of kids and adults. I am asking you as Pope to help us and help other people understand we can change and want to change.

Teen in solitary confinement commits suicide

Teen in solitary confinement commits suicide James Stewart was 17 when he committed suicide after being placed in solitary confinement. He is part of a rising tide of juveniles who commit suicide while being locked away in solitary. Rock Center Special Correspondent Ted Koppel reports. http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rock-center/51299099

The Remarkable Transformation of CT’s Juvenile Justice System

We thought of the children Posted: 28 Feb 2013 04:30 AM PST For years I’ve written about the sorry state of the juvenile justice system and the inattention we pay to the lives of the children who get caught up in it, sometimes through no fault of their own. So it heartens me (with some pretty important reservations) to see this report [PDF] from the Justice Policy Institute about the remarkable transformation of CT’s juvenile justice system from one of complete failure to that of a role model for the rest of the country in about 10 short years. From their executive summary [PDF]: In 2007, Connecticut made national headlines when it passed a law ending its status as one of just three states that automatically tried and punished all 16 and 17 year-olds as adults. Yet this historic “Raise the Age” legislation is just one of many reforms enacted by Connecticut’s juvenile justice system in recent years. Propelled by a determined coalition of advocates and public sector innovators, Connecticut has forged a new consensus for progressive change in juvenile justice, and it has transformed a previously wasteful, punitive, ineffective, and often abusive juvenile justice system into a national model – at no additional cost to taxpayers. Perhaps more than any other state, Connecticut has absorbed the growing body of knowledge about youth development and delinquency, adopted its lessons, and used the information to fundamentally re-invent its approach to juvenile justice. As a result, Connecticut’s system today is far and away more successful, more humane, and more cost-effective than it was 10 or 20 years ago. And the evidence is staggering: residential commitments for juveniles are down 70% despite the influx of 16 and 176 year olds into the system; the number of juveniles locked up for “status offenses” (missing school, etc.) has become negligible; the number of youth tried and convicted as adults has also drastically declined: For decades, Connecticut was one of only three states that prosecuted and punished all 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. In 2007, the state enacted historic legislation to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18, effective January 1, 2010 for 16 year olds and July 1, 2012 for 17 year olds. Even before 17 year-olds became eligible for juvenile court on July 1, 2012, the new law had enabled 8,325 16 year-olds to avoid prosecution and punishment in the adult criminal justice system. Extending juvenile jurisdiction to 16 year-olds has increased juvenile caseloads far less than expected (22 percent actual versus 40 percent projected); as a result the state spent nearly $12 million less in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 than it had budgeted. Meanwhile, 16 year-olds served by the juvenile system have had higher success rates in alternative programs and lower rearrest rates than youth 15 and younger, disproving concerns that they should be in the adult system. That’s great and all and everyone involved with this staggering reform must be commended. But. But as I’ve written before, there are 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 year olds who are still treated as adults. And still subjected to the horrors of the adult criminal system and adult prisons: Department of Correction data show that youth incarcerated in adult correctional facilities suffer alarming recidivism: 85 percent are re-arrested within two years of release, 62 percent are convicted of new crimes, and 70 percent return to prison on a new charge or parole violation. Pursuant to C.G.S. 46b-127, any child 14 and older, who is accused of a Class B or A felony is automatically transferred to adult court and treated like an adult. There is no discretion; the legislature, in their “hard on crime” binges in the 90s, took that power away from the prosecutor and the judge. At the same time, they legislature removed the defendant’s seat at the table. The defense can no longer put on a hearing or ask that the case remain in juvenile court. Even when the case is in adult court, no one except the prosecutor has the authority to decide to send it back. There’s no oversight and, unlike New Jersey [PDF], our legislature and courts haven’t decided that the decision to treat 14 year olds like adults is important enough to warrant that someone, somewhere state their reasons for doing so on the record. There is absolutely no accountability and the only thing that matters is checking off a box on a list. So, you say, that’s fine. Even a 14 year old should be held accountable for a serious crime. No doubt. But do you know the punishments Class A and B felonies expose a teenager to? Class B felonies have a 20 year maximum and Class A 25 years, both longer than the life that the teenager would have lived up to that point. Making matters worse is the mandatory-minimums. There is a lengthy list of crimes for which 14 year old children have to be tried as adults which carry mandatory minimum sentences of 5 or 10 years. And that means no matter how much anyone thinks it’s wrong, the child must get that time in jail. Minimum. According to the data in this report, in 2010, approximately 170 children were automatically transferred to adult court and kept there and treated as adults. How many of them are now serving long, mandatory prison sentences in adult court? Whose 14 year old is going through absolute hell? When the Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, it made no distinction between 14, 15, 16 and 17 year olds. Because the Court recognized that they were, after all, children. Why do we insist differently? Our decisions rested not only on common sense — on what “any parent knows” — but on science and social science as well. Id., at 569, 125 S.Ct. 1183. In Roper, we cited studies showing that “`[o]nly a relatively small proportion of adolescents’” who engage in illegal activity “`develop entrenched patterns of problem behavior.’” Id., at 570, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (quoting Steinberg & Scott, Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence: Developmental Immaturity, Diminished Responsibility, and the Juvenile Death Penalty, 58 Am. Psychologist 1009, 1014 (2003)). And in Graham, we noted that “developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds” — for example, in “parts of the brain involved in behavior control.” 560 U.S., at ___, 130 S.Ct., at 2026.[5] We reasoned that those findings — 2465*2465 of transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences — both lessened a child’s “moral culpability” and enhanced the prospect that, as the years go by and neurological development occurs, his “`deficiencies will be reformed.’” Id., at ___, 130 S.Ct., at 2027 (quoting Roper, 543 U.S., at 570, 125 S.Ct. 1183). Roper and Graham emphasized that the distinctive attributes of youth diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes. Children are different. Let’s continue to treat them that apublicdefender.com /Feb.28/2013