Dozens of Children In US Face Life In Prison
ALABASTER, Alabama - Underage criminals cannot face the death penalty in the United States but dozens of offenders imprisoned for crimes committed when they were young teenagers will still die behind bars.
The U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for minors in 2005 but 19 states permit “life-means-life” sentences for those under 18, according to a study by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).
In all, 2,225 people are sentenced to die in U.S. prisons for crimes they committed as minors and 73 of them were aged 13 and 14 at the time of the crime, according to the group, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama.
Elsewhere in the world, life sentences with no chance of parole are rare for underage offenders. Human Rights Watch estimates that only 12 people outside the United States face such sentences.
Judicial reform advocates say the U.S. provision is an example of how harsh sentences have helped cause a jump in incarceration rates since the 1970s. The United States jails a higher percentage of its population than anywhere else in the industrialized world, these advocates say.
“These kids have been swept up in this tide of carceral control that is unparalleled in American history,” said Bryan Stevenson, director of the EJI. “We have become quite comfortable about throwing people away,” he said.
Others defend the statute, arguing it is popular with voters and gives comfort to victims to know that perpetrators of serious crimes against them will not one day walk free.
They also use an “adult crime, adult time” argument — minors who commit adult crimes should be punished as adults.
“I SAW HER IN FLAMES”
The case of Ashley Jones, who was 14 when she killed, illustrates the seriousness of many crimes that result in for-life sentences.
One night in August 1999, Jones and her 16-year-old boyfriend, Geramie Hart, angered by her family’s disapproval of their relationship, went to her home in Birmingham, Alabama. They set her grandfather on fire with lighter fluid, stabbed him and shot him dead.
They also stabbed and shot dead Jones’ aunt in her bedroom and set her grandmother on fire.
Jones’ 10-year-old sister, Mary, was asleep in bed but they dragged her to the kitchen to see the attack on her family.
“I had to sit there and watch her (Ashley) torture my grandmother. I saw her in flames,” said Mary Jones, recounting her ordeal in an interview in Alabaster, Alabama.
“Geramie … picked me up by my neck and pointed a gun at me and said: ‘This is how you are going to die.’ Ashley said: ‘No, wait. I’ll do her.’”
They stabbed Mary Jones repeatedly, puncturing a lung, and drove off leaving her and her grandmother, whose injuries included burns, stab and gunshot wounds, to stagger outside.
The questions raised by criminal cases involving teenagers are difficult to answer.
Is a young teenager responsible for crimes in the same way as an adult and to what extent, if at all, should courts consider a minor’s family situation and background?
“It goes against human inclinations to give up completely on a young teenager. It’s impossible for a court to say that any 14-year-old never has the possibility to live in society,” said Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
“LOST ALL HOPE”
The Equal Justice Initiative has filed suits in six states challenging the life-without-parole sentences and has brought a case in federal court in northern Alabama over the Jones case, arguing it represents cruel and unusual punishment.
Hart is also serving the same sentence.
The group says a disproportionate number of the minors serving the sentence are black or Hispanic and many were tried as adults with inadequate legal counsel. Also, it says up to 70 percent were given mandatory sentences.
Not all those serving life-means-life sentences for crimes committed as minors are convicted killers.
Antonio Nunez was convicted of multiple counts of attempted murder and also aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to life without parole for his role in a kidnap, police chase and shootout in April, 2001, in which nobody was injured.
Nunez, aged 14 at the time of the crime, grew up in a part of Los Angeles where gang activity was common. In 2000, he was wounded and his brother killed in a gang-related shooting.
His sister Cindy Nunez said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles the life sentence devastated her family.
“He has lost all hope …. We try to keep his spirits up by saying something will change in the law,” she said.
Mary Jones, now 19, is attempting to reconstruct her life. She testified against her sister in court but has visited her in jail. She blames Hart for changing her sister from “the sweetest girl” into a murderer.
“She should have a chance to have a life. Her life shouldn’t just be taken away from her like that. Sometimes I’m kind of mad and then I’m sad,” she said. “I practically lost her too because she is in prison.”
Reporting by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Michael Christie and Eddie Evans
©2008 Reuters
“One night in August 1999, Jones and her 16-year-old boyfriend, Geramie Hart, angered by her family’s disapproval of their relationship, went to her home in Birmingham, Alabama. They set her grandfather on fire with lighter fluid, stabbed him and shot him dead.
They also stabbed and shot dead Jones’ aunt in her bedroom and set her grandmother on fire.”
While I admire her sister’s ability to forgive even in the midst of a horrifying crime, Ashley Jones’ crime is not one that should allow for reprieve - ever. Some people are just born evil and frankly, the application of the death penalty would be most appropriate - even at 14.
We’re a sick society. We brutalize children and then punish them for brutality. We are the criminals.
The problem with living in the richest country in the world is that it is depressing that the wealth is at the top and children are at the bottom. Our infant mortality rate is number 37 in the world. Bad enough, but if you take only the black American infant mortality rate, we are down with the poorest countries. Shame on us.
kathyodat
Angst you are another sick mind. NO child is born evil. When babies and children are beaten and neglected, they do not become socialized. It is only mistreatment that causes people to do bad things. Until people get that through their heads, we will go on creating criminals.
Clarence Darrow had it right when he said if you love the idea of killing people you’re for the death penalty and if you hate the idea of killing people you’re against the death penalty.
kathyodat
BeForKids:
True, evil is not an inherent condition…but all humans are born delusional as to what is real and what is not and that delusion is exacerbated by the adults they emulate. Most recently, in my own town, two children lent themselves to a plot to destroy a teacher led by adults with a secret agenda. Fortunatly the truth came out before the plot could be realized, but this is not always the case. The assumption that children are inherently innocent is as erronious as the proposition they are sometimes “born evil.” Either assumption leads to incorrect action. Certainly, using violence to cure violence (and there is nothing non-violent about a stay in a US prison) is just one of many delusions our society perpetrates.
Hart and Jones deserve to rot for life. Nunez doesn’t deserve life if he didn’t do the killing.
Got it upside down, plantman. Children are born with a sense of rightness and don’t see any around them. By the age of three months or perhaps even earlier they lose hope that they will get the mirroring, validation and empathy that they intuitively want. The mistake is thinking they are born senseless. They aren’t. They are born inexperienced and without the ability to communicate with us.
kathyodat
militant”liberal”, some pretty bloodthirsty people on this site.
kathyodat
Spare a thought as well for the wrongly convicted. David McCallum went to prison at 16 for a crime he did not commit; he is now 38 years old. www.freedavidmccallum.com
Although I’m not a fan of the death penalty, nor am I a fan of handing out life sentences to minors…but the details of this crime are such that I’ll say something I don’t often say….”Lock them up and throw away the key”. Those aren’t the acts of an angry child, they are the acts of a sick and evil person.
BeForKids:
?????
Giving up hope by three months? Where do you get this information? Are you psychic? How does one measure the “hope quotient” of a three month old? How do you know what infants intuitivly want? If they are unable to communicate how do you know these things? This sounds more like a belief system then any kind of actual evidence. Exactly what I was commenting on.
I think I’ve had enough of Common Dreams, good site, but the comments are often beyond me. We have so many serious issues facing us, global warming, DU use, the Arctic methane gas release, the horrific pollution of our oceans, the destruction of our rain forests, atomic radiation causing millions, including children and babies to suffer with cancers etc, and the vast majority who blog here at CD don’t ever bother to comment on those issues.
Indeed this article’s thrust is a serious problem, we now have a very sick society and perhaps we do not deserve to survive as a nation. ___ Anyway, I am personally fed up with so many of the bloggers comments here at CD. What use is it? We are not learning from one another anymore here, a goodly portion of comments are just attacks on others opinions.
BeForKids: I’ve never seen such an unreasonable post from you. If those who committed the crimes were not blamed and locked away, there would be no end to these atrocities.
Anyone capable of setting these poor people on fire is a monster and deserves to be locked away forever.
Mary Jones is quite a girl with her capacity for forgiveness.
I think the lesson here is that we need to learn from Mary Jones capacity to forgive.
jstevens, I’m just saying we create criminals and then we punish them. We are also responsible for those crimes. Why don’t you read Crime and Punishment by Kahlil Gibran? Here’s the link, if you choose to inform yourself.
http://www.poetry-enlightened.org/article.php?id_article=242
plantman, do you think babies are unaware of what is happening in their lives? They are just little eating and pooping machines? There have been recent studies showing cartoon characters to three month old babies helping, hindering, or taking no action with a baby trying to get over a barrier, and the babies invariably preferred to look at the helpers. If they didn’t have that option, they would look at the take no action character, but not the hinderer. The researchers concluded that babies are capable of value judgments at three months. So what do you think babies are doing in family settings? Nothing? They are busy figuring out how the world works, and for most of them it’s not good news.
I was an ignorant young mother with my first two, and my third was born years later. When he was three months old he stared into my eyes and suddenly burst into howls. I was shocked and baffled and tried to comfort and console him. Some years later I read that that children do not need to be “educated” to be good, they need mirroring, validation and empathy. I had no idea what that meant but it felt profound and I saved it and pondered it for years. I finally got it and have applied it with my grandkids.
The worst form of abuse is not physical or emotional abuse, but neglect, because then the child has not formed connections with others and is capable of inflicting pain without remorse. And whose fault is that, the child? Obviously they aren’t safe in society, but is it right to destroy their humanity and then blame and punish them?
Everyone know if you are kind to a puppy he grows up sweet but if you brutalize him he grows up mean. Why should people be different?
kathyodat
KEM PATRICK- I must concur. I discovered CD back in 2001 and visited at every opportunity until relatively recently. Now I visit less. I had mixed emotions about the comment posting idea when it began. Now I firmly believe it has not enhanced the value of the site at all and may, in fact, be a detriment. The stories on CD are generally thought provoking and important but I personally do not see any great value in the dialectic. I sense a negativity and animosity contained in many of the posts and there are plenty of windows into America’s ugly “social soul” without turning CD into another one.
Regarding this article, children are products of the environment in which they are raised.
I have posted a number of times and it has nearly always been the same post. My apologies to those that would rather not see it again but here goes-
It took me 50 years to learn this-
Heat is energy. Cold is not. Cold is simply the relative absence of heat. One cannot manufacture a machine that produces cold. To make something cold, remove the heat.
Light is energy. Darkness is not. Darkness is simply the relative absence of light. One cannot manufacture a machine that produces darkness. To make something dark, remove the light.
Compassion (love) is energy. Evil is not. Evil is the relative absence of compassion. To make something evil, remove compassion.
The degree to which one lacks compassion is the degree to which one serves evil. This is true regardless of religious beliefs, political alignment or anything else.
Imagine yourself in a giant auditorium with all of the lights turned off. Total darkness. In your hand is a flashlight. A flick of the thumb sends a beam through the darkness. While the flashlights beam is not infinitely powerful, all of the darkness in the universe, if you could bring it into the auditorium, would have no effect on it whatsoever. There is no battle between darkness and light. Darkness is powerless. The battle takes place in the thumb.
The same thing can be said for the trigger finger. The battle between good and evil does not take place “out there” where the bullet is. It takes place in the finger.
The battle is between that which is separate from all else (ego) and that which is connected to all else (spirit).
To borrow from Carl Jung
“We used to regard foreigners—the other side—as political and moral reprobates; but the modern man is forced to recognize that he is politically and morally just like everyone else. Whereas I formally believed it to be my bounden duty to call other persons to order, I now admit that I need calling to
order myself.”
…and from Joseph Campbell-
“…every failure to cope with a life situation must be laid, in the end, to a restriction of consciousness, Wars and temper tantrums are the makeshifts of ignorance; regrets are illuminations come too late.”
“Totem, tribal, racial, and aggressively missionizing cults represent only partial solutions of the psychological problem of subduing hate by love; they only partially initiate. Ego is not annihilated in them; rather, it is enlarged; instead of thinking only of himself, the individual becomes dedicated to the whole of his society. The rest of the world meanwhile (that is to say, by far the greater portion of mankind) is left outside the sphere of his sympathy and protection because outside the sphere of the protection of his god. And there takes place, then, that dramatic divorce of the two principles of love and hate which the pages of history so bountifully illustrate. Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world. The laws of the City of God are applied only to his in-group (tribe, church, nation, class, or what not) while the fire of a perpetual holy war is hurled (with good conscience, and indeed a sense of pious service) against whatever uncircumcised, barbarian, heathen, “native,” or alien people happens to occupy the position of neighbor.”
…and finally from Albert Einstein-
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences his self, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separate from the rest– a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in it’s beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and foundation for inner security.”
Open the door to a dark room. Does the darkness flow out or the light rush in?
Truth Faerie
The_truth_faerie@yahoo.com
Im glad she CAN forgive her sister - but - given the extreme and bloodthirsty nature of this crime, anything short of life imprisonment, in absence of the death penalty, is too lenient.
This girl is an animal.
14 is old enough to understand what you are doing when you set someone on fire and torture your own sister.
Also, “evil” can be debated, but the idea that some humans arent born more nasty than others is a slightly overly optimistic appraisal of the human condition.
A piglet is born innocent–but with humans you never know what you are going to get, regardless of upbringing.
Angst of the people–she may be an animal
but worst of all
she is a HUMAN animal.
Only humans do this sort of thing. Other species are saints by comparison.
KEM PATRICK March 21st, 2008 12:51 pm:
“I think I’ve had enough of Common Dreams, good site, but the comments are often beyond me.”
Good point KP, we have to imagine ourselves a better world, but how to get there? Perhaps you have it mapped out already. Me, I have had no joy achieving that. I do, nevertheless, see glimpses of it in the articles and yes even some of the posts here on CommonDreams.
truth faerie, that was a beautiful post. Thank you.
kathyodat
I’m against the death penalty. I think that some cases are so horrendous that even though the criminal is 14, she/he deserves a life sentence. Harsh? I don’t think so. I mean come on, the Jones girl tortured and killed 2 people and tortured and attempted to kill two more. It’s only fair that if a person takes a life, they should give up theirs and live in prison the rest of their life.
At 14 I knew the difference between right and wrong, and I never thought of torturing and killing my family simply because we had a disagreement.
As far as her sister’s statement about her murderous sister being the “sweetest” girl; no sweet girl is going to be so easily influenced to kill her family or anyone, for that matter.
The measure of a civilised society is measured in the quality of it’s justice system - It’s no accident that America’s worst ever President came to power after presiding over 247 executions where he felt unwilling to offer any kind of clemency in even one instance. After seven years there isn’t a solitary original cell that made up any human being… without redemption and rehabilitation wherever feasible as guiding principles in prison there is no prospect of a viable judicial system.
Amnesty International wrote - “Every day in prisons and jails across the USA, the human rights of prisoners are violated. In many facilities, violence is endemic. In some cases, guards fail to stop inmates assaulting each other. In others, the guards are themselves the abusers, subjecting their victims to beatings and sexual abuse. Prisons and jails use mechanical, chemical and electro-shock methods of restraint that are cruel, degrading and sometimes life-threatening. The victims of abuse include pregnant women and the mentally ill.”
Cat here! I knew a fellow who was raised by two women…his mother and grandmother…good house, plenty of money…nice people….We know only what we are told…by whoever…this nice boy from a nice home…got on drugs…bad drug dealer right? He took out another boys eye in a fight…bad boy right….he joined the Marines…to get out of going to jail…they will scarp a few good men off any court house steps, Marines saw him as a loose cannon and dismissed him…they only want psychotics that will be under their control. (my opinion) He went home with his tail between his legs back to the womyn who LOVED HIM. His girlfriend had found another boy…and Mama and Grandma good God fearing women spent a good deal of time reminding him that he was a useless looser…Not made up, I was from time to time in the home…both womyn would insult and make fun of him in front of his friends…humiliate and abuse him…I have no doubt that this was “just the way home was for him for a long time” maybe his whole life….It was ugly, ugly to be around and I was lucky…I could leave and get high with him and make it all funny…but it wasn’t….and one day they were at him and he got a gun and told them he was going to shoot himself…Bad GUN right? and they said go on let’s see you…Happy ending…He did…shot his face off right in front of both of them…Now the question? In all this..who deserves to be punished?? the gun, the dealer,the court, the girl friend, the mother, the grandmother, the friends, the Marines, society, Me??? When hideous things happen they just don’t jump out of nowhere…they are grown. Deformed seeds? Deformed soil? Deformed systems and attitudes? What if the poisons in the water,air and food, the toxic hate on the TV and the frustrations of Cowardly leaders and greed make the fabric of society weak and murderous…Now who do we blame? No quick fix answers from me. No scape goats to run out of town. No sacrificial lamb to take the burden and bestow blessings…I have the right to change me…and only me and when I have healed myself I have a feeling that I will not judge others…even those two vicious womyn who killed their only son. They had plenty of help!
BeForKids: What is this “we created criminals” premise? The best way to create criminals is to not punish them at all. What tactic would you suggest for the murderers described in this article? A little counseling and then release back into society?
As for Gibran–what works for nice and peaceful poetry does not work as “information”. Your suggestion that I should “inform myself” by poetry is a little odd. Perhaps you could inform yourself by reviewing recidivism rates. As Gibran died in the 1930’s he probably was not even able to imagine the senseless gang killings that modern Americans almost take in stride.
BeForKids
If I had a nickle for every time I have heard the phrase, “there was a study done”, I’d be quite wealthy. It means nothing. What was the study? Who did it? What were the controls? Who analized the data? What did the peer review commentary indicate? Was this sanctioned by a University or a govt. agency? Who paid for it?
I appreciate your anecdotal evidence, I have quite a bit myself having been a single parent who raised two well adjusted adults. It doesn’t mean anything. Your projections onto the actions of infants are very warm and fuzzy and if it works for you, fine. But the fact is that infants have not made the neural connections necessary to accomplish the things you contend they have. Nor have you answered my question as to how (if infants cannot communicate:your words not mine)you received this information. The human brain is not born fully formed. Neural pathways are connected by information and experience as the child ages.
Its called “learning.” As I said earlier, what you have postulated is a belief system. I have some beliefs myself but they have no place in a
socio-scientific discussion. Without the hard evidence, you can only speculate. Indeed any hypothesis not supported by empirical evidence
is not only useless but dangerous. The problem of children gone bad for whatever reason, is complicated and cannot be described in a paragraph or two. Humans are difficult to catagorize and what is true for one is not necessarily true for others. I agree that something has gone seriously wrong with the girl who did these terrible things and I suspect not all of it is her fault. But I don’t know her and cannot say for sure what the problem is. Drugs could be involved…peer
pressure…she may have suffered brain damage…I don’t know and neither do you. Save the warm fuzzies for bed-time with the kids.
The WOD makes gangs.
There are many that post here on a consistent and quality basis (I’m not one of them), such as B4Kids, Militant Lib, Siouxsierose(spelling?), and of course Kem P and others, but B4K is true to her mantra and game and for that I respect her auality opinions. The postings are what I look forward to more so than the initial article. Yes many of lefties do feel somewhat torn and conflicted when personally confronted with harm and crime (”don’t turn me into a reactionary conservative), but we must get involved and active and address issues to help solve and fix things, at least I hope we do and have I continue to have faith (wink wink) in the system. Currently, I face a dilemma on how to address a young man selling dope near an elderly relative’s house where I was born and raised under her care. I will approach the young man and residents with the upmost respect, tact, wisdom and diplomacy, but if that fails and I’m harmed, well then justice will be served and vengeance from others I can’t stop. I pray for the best and those of you that read wish me well, or Central California will have one less progressive advocating for peace, equality, fair play and haromony for the common good. That’s why we share “Common Dreams..
BeForKids: What is this “we created criminals” premise? The best way to create criminals is to not impeach them at all.
As for the children who cannot judge their actions - that’s just another business opportunity.
See ‘Hocus Pocus’ by Kurt Vonnegut.
We’ve all lost our way so bad, we cannot see the forest for the trees. With the advent of ‘women’s movement,’ it almost became shameful for mothers to stay at home to care for their children, so now most of the women work (because, in many cases, it’s not longer optional), and send their kids off to daycare for someone else to raise, or leave them home to raise themselves. Then people wonder why so many children have behavior problems, and the doctors tell them it’s ADHD and that Ritalin is the solution. Hello? Anybody home in our heads? Our children are a reflection of us, except that they often express the fear, competitiveness and hatred we hide. We put them to death or lock them up for life for killing and stealing, then support the mass killing and pillaging of another country. Wow, are we ever asleep here.
And to Kem: many of these ills are interrelated and require a holistic approach. Helping our children by raising them to be compassionate and aware would necessitate we learn what it means to be the same. And inner transformation such as this would naturally lead us to address many of those issues which you have made reference to and deem to be ‘more’ important.
Meaningful change will not merely come from changing the bulbs on the Christmas tree, but from properly caring for the tree itself.
Kem Patrick, please don’t leave CD as I look forward to your insightful posts (although I don’t always agree with everything you say). Since I joined, about a year ago, I’ve found most of the posts to be pretty positive, with only a select few being not worth reading so I just skip over them.
Regarding this article, I must say that after seeing the outcome when my sister neglected her children, due to her alcoholism, I’m sure the people who would “throw away the key” on adolescents probably haven’t had any experience with them at all or they wouldn’t say such things (I could be wrong). Was it their fault they got into trouble from her neglect? All people have their own way of calling out for attention, even if it’s negative attention they’re seeking.
Anyway, perhaps some of the posts that make you want to leave here are simply to serve as a reminder that some people have not yet evolved to where they can put out the positive energy our world needs to survive us humans.
Woe is ignorance. jstevens, I never suggested “a little counseling and then release back into society”. We know how to create sociopaths, we certainly don’t know how to heal them.
plantman, some people spend too much time in their heads.
Reading some of the above posts makes me feel like I’m living in the dark ages, with rays of hope here and there. You sunrays know who you are.
kathyodat
Sorry folks..that is a brutal crime, and there is no way that they should be let out on the street. There is no justification.. I do believe that there are evil souls..just check out some of our national leaders..there are many cases where two children of the same upbringing, one light , one dark..there is no excuse for that callousness. It’s deranged and most likely you will find that people who commit these acts have no remorse or feelings about what they do . often not even rage..just cold blooded..It’s very sobering, and while I am against capital punishment period, these types of crimes must be dealt with very seriously.
“I had mixed emotions about the comment posting idea when it began. Now I firmly believe it has not enhanced the value of the site at all and may, in fact, be a detriment.”
Dont read the comments then… what harm is there in letting people comment? Unless far right-wingers hijack the comments, and turn it into a troll fest, i dont see how people leaving comments can be a bad thing. And even if it was hijacked by said trolls, it can get the ball rolling on what to do about it, its not just on CD that it is happening.
Hard to throw kids into jail when we have a society that waves flags for illegal mass murder campaigns. Hard to do it when we see people arrested by US forces with hoods over their heads on US network news with no questioning of the fact that these people are being tortured(hooding is a form of torture called sensory deprivation.) The Bush administration was finally found out for what it is when Americans woke up and turned against this criminal band of psychopaths. But how can we blame these brand new young Americans who grow up in a psycho world like this? I think the efforts for many behind bars, young and old alike, should turn away from punishment and toward rebuilding and making them whole —love can be very difficult and hate so easy we feel so powerful when we hate.. The justice system really has become a crime in itself.
We must stop hating and killing and screaming for vengeance if we are to survive and thrive as a world community. This was clearly the message of Jesus Christ.
As noted in great detail by Philip Zimbardo in his work and in his book, “The Lucifer Effect - How good people turn evil”, there is always a question of how much is it “bad apples” or how much is it a “bad barrel”. When there is an injustice system, how much are we the jailors, and how much are we the bad environment. There is a prison mentality in the US, and a lot of that mentality is occurs in people outside of prison. It ties together with religious fundamentalism, a society that worships guns and violence as much as Christianity, and a society that believes in losers and winners, with both gross exploitation and rejection of immigrant workers, and unfettered capitalism. These experiments have been already tried with failure elsewhere. They are on the road to no-where.
The US society hasn’t yet escaped the bonds of enslavement to material wealth and its acquisition, obtained by its depecrations on other nations. You replaced black slavery with economic slavery. A society that is sick with gross per capita overconsumption of energy, and denies the climate change caused from its excess of greenhouse gases. You maintain a nuclear arsenal with more than enough planet destroying radioactivity to wipe out all larger lifeforms. If that is not a prison mentality, what is this?
Despite great achievements of its many individuals in the past, the lack of which would be surprising in a civilization of such wealth and extremes, the resource limits of the entire world are going to effect your civilization and your society. You cannot solve your personal relationship, social and mental problems by expensively locking up every person infected with your nations rot. Its been tried before and is a social failure.
The largest parts of problem lie in the minds of the people who are outside of prison. A whole nation warped by a history of easy conquest, consumption and religiosity. The American Dreams of being gods chosen race of overlords are colliding today with reality, adversity and complexity, in which your leaders are dangerous and mentally unfit to cope, and unable help your populations by introducing truthful new ideas. You have freedom of speech, but a discourse of lies and sick platitudes.
You are a nation of isolated consumers, and slave workers, instead of a society of neighbors. You have even given up on a decent education for the non-prison poor, let alone re-educating the downtrodden imprisoned. Christ the teacher would be disgusted with the lot of you. The US is a victim of wealth and success, obtained at others expense, and now failing to live with it wisely, and now failing more so as it disappears. And so do we all fail. Natural selection will not be kind in the long run.
In the case cited there was certain guilt. People who light their grandparents on fire are not safe to be around. We should work on setting just the right sentence for them as soon as we quit killing innocent people just because someone can make a buck out of killing them or stealing the oil under their feet.
Babies are not born sweet and innocent. They will scream their heads off for what they want, take anything they can get their hands on and think only of themselves. They will also hit and bite people and animals just to be mean. That is why you must teach them the word no.
With proper parenting and good examples they can learn to be kind and share with others, because they can learn empathy for others.
With shitty parenting they can turn out like Shotgun Dick and Bu$h the inferior, (two of the most selfish spoiled little babies anyone could have the misfortune to share the planet with).
shakker, not just to be mean. but because they are expressing their anger. They are rather primitive about expressing anger. And they love sharing and trust games. They especially love to share food with their grubby little hands.
kathyodat
Babies are not born sweet and innocent. They will scream their heads off for what they want, take anything they can get their hands on and think only of themselves. They will also hit and bite people and animals just to be mean. That is why you must teach them the word no.
I don’t buy that……..and I am currently a grandmother of a 1 year old.
You have to understand the way children learn. There is a form of communication and it starts even before they are born. I had communication with my child in my womb.
Just saying no, doesn’t work and neither does violence.
BeForKids: You have not offered any suggestion of an appropriate punishment for those who commit heinous murders. However, by labeling me ignorant, you have clearly won this debate. You got me.
Good one!
Children are born with different natural tendencies, some say a unique ‘essence,’ and every society encourages certain tendencies while discouraging others. In one way or another, we are all ‘indoctrinated.’ Children are not all the same, and I’m sure there are those who are not as naturally ‘kind’ as others. The proof? Children don’t all react the same to adverse conditions.
In America we cultivate many negative tendencies to the hilt. There is a lot of hidden aggression and competitiveness within is, even as there is a pretense of ‘goodness,’ which is mostly false religiosity. Children get that on a certain level and, unfortunately, very few grow whole and happy; they generally adopt whatever brand of disfunctionality they tend toward, or imposed on them by their surroundings.
Many of us as adults are just happy to cope in our cutthroat society, where everyday is a struggle for, or to keep the ‘legal tender’ we do earn–if we are fortunate to earn enough to provide for our needs. For some, being on the streets if far worse than being in prison. That should tell us something.
jstevens, I did not offer appropriate punishment because there is no appropriate punishment. Correction is not punishment. People who commit heinous crimes are sick in spirit. Our society is not constructed to heal wounded spirits so at this time all we can do is restrain these people so they cannot harm others. The shame is ours. I realize you think I’m talking nonsense which is why I called you ignorant. More accurately I should have said unenlightened. I apologize.
MA_Matriarch and chessgames, wonderful comments. I especially liked that term “unique essence”. Evocative.
kathyodat
MA_Matriarch, I wish I could have been as good a mother as I am a grandmother. But perhaps that is why children have grandmothers. My son watched me with his children and commented “Children need grandmothers”. And perhaps part of the tragedy of our society is that families are scattered all over the country, not to mention that both parents are working their tails off and have little time or energy for their kids - and kids do require energy, like plants require sunlight.
My youngest son’s father grew up in the USSR, and he said in this country children are your least valuable resource, in Russia they are the national treasure. Now that Russia is another capitalist country, they have become what ours are, no market value, so valueless. And they know it. They are consigned to be little animals, trying to survive in a jungle. Their feelings are as strong as ours. And they are as smart as we are. Our three year old son left us speechless with his logical arguments. Can’t argue with that.
kathyodat
After reading CD for years, this is my first post.
KEM Patrick: As others have posted, I also look forward to your comments. I am weary of the drumbeat of hate and war, disappointed in myself and society for allowing all this to happen, and tired of the indifference and selfish nature of man.
That said, I find comfort and inspiration in the brief flashes of insight I sometimes find in the comments on CD.
I look for your posts because they are often a respite of hope and reason in a sea of drek.
Cat: I really enjoyed your post. I found it thoughtful, different, sad, and quite to the point.
Truth Faerie: I really enjoyed your post as well.
The article focused on the worst of kids, sorry but that is a fact. Had it been a simple murder, a crime of ‘heated passion’ without the arson and the torture, then the redemption of the child might be possible. As it stands, she should have a chance at parole; by which I mean she has a life sentence, but may be released from prison under supervision of a trained parole officer… Life in jail without the chance of parole leads to increased violence in the prisons and outside of them, taking away the hope of release is utterly cruel; unless you’re dealing with a psychopath like C. Manson who still thinks that after everything he’s got a good chance of getting out…
Giving a child a sentence of two hundred years, or anyone else for that matter, is foolish. Does anyone really expect the person to live that long? Will the body be kept in a cold cell until the sentence is expired before it gets buried? Punishment is, and should be, expected for certain acts. However that punishment must be more reasonable than what currently forms the retributative societies of North America. It should be kept in mind that eventually we’ll have to release some of these people. Either so many people will be thrown in prison that you can no longer afford to keep them there, or the laws will be reformed/changed and (again most likely due to cost) you’re not going to want to hire executioners to deal with the overflowing prisons. Some right wingers will say that they’re more than happy to pull the lever themselves, and until they get their hand on the lever they might believe they could kill someone. Most of them are all talk, but won’t walk. Real executioners are not honorable men, and I don’t want them working for me, or my government.
I think the only people who belong in jail are those who act violently towards others. Druggies, thieves, vandals, etc. should be dealt with in other ways; Treatment for the addicted, economic justice for all, and restoration of damages by the vandal. After all, why make the victims of those crimes pay twice over, the original crime and the taxes needed to keep a prisoner who could be employed?
I wish this piece hadn’t focused on a crime that was completely unrepresentative of the crimes for which kids (and adults) get LWOP.
Yes, most LWOP kids were convicted of murder. But a significant number of them were convicted of felony murder, an enhanced category of culpability that the US adopted in earnest just when the rest of us were leaving off. See this NY Times piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/04felony.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The US has over 2000 LWOPed kids, the rest of the world put together fewer than 20. And unfortunately, the disgrace that is the US penal system, both for children and adults, is such that much lesser sentences become, in effect, life sentences because of criminal acclimitisation of prisoners, rampant Hep C and HIV, abysmal medical and mental health care, institutionalised physical and sexual violence, inadequate post-release services, and a society that has little or no interest in knowing, much less doing anything, about it.
I don’t know enough about Ashley Jones to have formed an opinion on whether she could ever safely be released. I do have opinions about LWOP, mandatory sentencing, and felony murder rule, however: they are extremely blunt instruments for dealing intelligently with real human beings.
realdim, thanks for the link. I’m trying to decide if our country is going insane, or it’s a conspiracy to lock up potential Democrats. I mean, to convict someone of felony murder and lock them up for life because they loaned friends their car when they were drunk? Sounds like something Florida would do. As long as they’re Black and not Hispanic (who tend to vote Republican). When the Republicans were caging people they were careful to screen all the Hispanic sounding names off the caging lists.
Just what are we going to do when we have a higher number of our population in prison than outside? What’s left of us will be working our asses off supporting the rich and the prison population. In a collapsing economy? Can’t wait. Let’s not even start talking about justice. In this country justice is a sick joke. Sorry if I sound like Reverend Wright, but I can get away with it because I’m white.
kathyodat
KEM and Truth Faerie: I’m done with CD, too. It used to be a way to get good information, get links to other sites that I don’t have the time to visit, etc.
There’s too much judgment on other people’s opinions now - and mostly negative judgment that serves no purpose. There’s too much negative energy in the world now. I get it at my work, in my family life. I don’t need any more of it.
It’s been a good ride. May all beings everywhere know lives of enoughness.
BeForKids March 22nd, 2008 1:04 pm wrote:
“I’m trying to decide if our country is going insane, or it’s a conspiracy to lock up potential Democrats.”
For the last 40 years, criminal law in the US has systematically been rigged to approximate the effects of de jure segregation and disenfranchisement of black Americans. And it’s largely been a bipartisan effort. You can read about Bill Clinton’s contribution here:
http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton.html
I kinda freaked when i read what they did but then i thought, well they grew up that way, so why could they not learn more advanced people skills somewhere and become whole people? i think that is possible. Then my next thought was that their behavior was so over the top they might have been seriously crazy. Also, they could have been way too high on crack or something. in any case i can never accept life without parole for kids, ever.
I think the blogs here are good, and care not one iota that I am mostly ignored. What I see are a lot of frustrated and demoralized people who feel disenfranchised, marginalized, and powerless. They are not not, of course, but seem to believe that they can bring meaningful outer reformation without understanding inner source of their/society’s projected turmoil. They say, in one way or another, that they are innocent, intelligent, progressive, etc., while everyone else is ignorant, negative, or whatever. When you begin to change fundamentally, you create a ‘wave of change’ around you which some will reject and some will embrace ( and that’s not our concern, by the way), and a wave such as that can quickly grow into a tsunami of light that no darkness, however energetic, can stop.
And do not be fooled: evil and darkness is perfectly capable of utilizing energy for its sinister purposes. It can only do so when the individual is asleep (unaware) as to their own nature, and to the nature of evil and darkness as a whole, which is perfectly capable of disguising itself as being good or beneficial, or even denying that evil/darkness exists at all!
Without a deep self-understanding, we are often confused or tricked to take one for another. Attachment to any belief is one example of that confusion.
See it.
Hey ~Iowairish~ get your butt back here, I ain’t leaving. I just meant I’ve about had it with all of the crappy comments that started when the Hillary/Obama wars began and the fact that so many of the most important enviromental issues are mostly ignored by the majority here.
“Some people are just born evil and frankly, the application of the death penalty would be most appropriate - even at 14.”
This whole site was ruined as soon as the editors opened it for comments. Instead of thoughtful analysis and discussion of ideas, every article is followed by a bunch of people making pronouncements and yelling at each other. There are still some thoughtful comments, of course, but mostly they are lost in the din. It’s such a shame. Just what we needed - another forum for people to not listen to each other.
If we as a society subject children to dysfunctional families, abusive social systems, the barbaric criminal criminal justice system, then why bother having kids in the first place? But then again America is a throw away society with “throw away” kids. That’s American family values for you.
As long as the US bases social policy around the ‘beliefs’
of religion, expect more of the same. Gotta run, I think my chickens are roosting.
L-girl March 23rd, 2008 3:22 pm
“Some people are just born evil and frankly, the application of the death penalty would be most appropriate - even at 14.”
This whole site was ruined as soon as the editors opened it for comments. Instead of thoughtful analysis and discussion of ideas, every article is followed by a bunch of people making pronouncements and yelling at each other.
Not always, some comments are cooler than others. The one you quoted is one that I’ve always found darkly amusing. I’ve known people who’ve expressed that attitude, until their own little munchkin has done something rather foolish (Bank robbery at 14, a good friend of mine but I wasn’t there when he started to go wild.) Weed out the comments from those who have no sense of empathy, and you’ll enjoy this site much more.
I don’t know about that some are born evil?
I don’t know, because no one could know. I just doubt it is so. I tend to agree with ~Be For Kids~ comments on that score. Children probably do learn love and anger while in the womb. Children who are born in a darkened, quiet room in pleasant surroundings, even delivered in a swimming or wading pool at body temperature, by the vast majority grow up to be very exceptional children and adults.
Imagine living several months in a mother’s womb, a warm water world of quiet and often feeling the mother’s love. Then with no warning, suddenly be delivered in a cold, brightly lit operating room, jerked around, perhaps smacked, finger and foot printed, washed off and wrapped in a soft cloth. Quite a trauma and perhaps some never quite get over it. I’ve heard that many people sub-consciencly wish to go back to their mother’s womb.
Hi ~Fainthope~ ___ When I was a kid, the chickens roosted on the edge of our flour barrell in the pantry. We always had to be sure to turn them around every night. That was often the last thing I’d hear my mom say to my dad before I fell asleep. ___ “Chuck, did you turn the chickens.”
“This whole site was ruined as soon as the editors opened it for comments. Instead of thoughtful analysis and discussion of ideas, every article is followed by a bunch of people making pronouncements and yelling at each other”
If you’re looking for thoughtful analysis and discussion, then you do have to accept that not everyone shares the same worldview. If you want to discuss, then discuss - but to decry opinion because its different than your own demonstrates only intellectual dishonesty and does nothing to advance discussion at all.
And America prides itself on brotherhood and humanity and the basic dignity of man. What a joke that is! None are so blind as those who will not see!
Want to tell me where the ‘basic dignity of man’ is in torturing and burning one’s own grandmother?
Hi Kem, good for you! I really liked your comments about how arrival feels to a newborn.
We create monsters who we then punish for being monsters. We are the monsters.
kathyodat