Nobody Is Beyond Redemption

At the age of 13, Ishmael and his friends began sniffing
"brown-brown"--a mix of cocaine and gunpowder--and wielding AK-47s. By
the age of 16, Ishmael had killed "too many people to count" by his own
admission. "All I knew was how to fight and loot," recalled Ishmael.

If Ishmael had committed such atrocities in the United States, he
would be sitting in a dank prison serving a life sentence without any
possibility of parole. Or, if the young African man had committed his
crimes in a place like Texas and his victims were white, he would
probably be on death row waiting for a date with the electric chair.
However, Ishmael's violent past occurred in Sierre Leone. The young
man is none other than 29-year-old Ishmael Beah, the former child
soldier and acclaimed author of A Long Way Gone.

Beah's story is one of the most powerful testimonials to the fact
that nobody--especially not a child--is beyond redemption. Eventually
released by the Sierra Leone government army, Beah was sent to a UNICEF
rehabilitation center and slowly regained his humanity. Beah attended
the United Nations International School in New York City and graduated
from Oberlin College in 2004. At the age of 26, he worked for Human
Rights Watch on children's rights issues. Since publishing his memoir,
Beah has spoken before the UN, the Council on Foreign Relations, and
myriad NGOs on the contagious effect of violence on children.

Beah recently denounced the practice of sentencing juveniles to
life without parole. "I've been very troubled by this issue," he
said. "We're only willing to forgive people if they hurt people who
are far way from us. But if they hurt one of us--an American--then we
cannot forgive." He continued, "Yet, we cannot have this double
standard. A child here is the same as a child anywhere."

Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, Jo
Becker, agrees with Beah and says there are startling contradictions in
the way the United States treats young offenders. "Millions of dollars
are poured into rehabilitation programs abroad [for child soldiers] yet
. . . our juvenile justice system is one of the most punitive in the
world."

The U.S. has the dubious distinction of standing alone in
condemning thousands of juveniles to life without parole. There are
currently over 2,500 prisoners serving such sentences for crimes they
committed as teenagers. Half of the prisoners serving juvenile life
without parole are first-time offenders; over 100 prisoners received
the sentence for non-homicide crimes; and, at least 74 cases involve
defendants who were 14 years old or younger when they committed their
crimes. With no hope of ever leaving prison, the term "life without
parole" is really a euphemism for a living death sentence.

Beah now helps rehabilitate children formerly involved in armed
conflict. "Children who have gone through violence can be the ones who
prevent more violence because they know the impact of violence on the
individual and community as well as the circumstances that lead to
violence," said Beah.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court decided in Roper v. Simmons that--under
the "evolving standards of decency" test--executing a person who was
under the age of 18 at the time of the crime was cruel and unusual
punishment. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that
juveniles have an "underdeveloped sense of responsibility" that leads
to "impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions," as well as
being "more susceptible to negative influences and peer pressure."

Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch note
that indefinitely detaining children is just as cruel and unusual as
executing them. The torture of capital punishment begins when
conscious human beings are condemned to death; similarly, the torture
of life without parole begins when a young person suddenly realizes
that no dream beyond the prison walls is worth nurturing. These NGOs
have also provided reliable statistics about recidivism, deterrence,
racial disparity, and poorly trained public defenders that belie both
the alleged benefits and assumed fairness of not only capital
punishment but also life without parole.

The Supreme Court is finally reconsidering whether it is
unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to lifetime prison terms without
the possibility of parole. Beah has joined actor Charles Dutton,
former U.S. Senator (R-Wyoming) Alan K. Simpson, and others in filing
an amicus brief on behalf of juveniles condemned to a slow death in prison.

"There are people in this country who are serving life
sentences for crimes that are much less terrible than what I did," said Beah
who acknowledges that the nexus between poverty, childhood abuse and neglect, social
and emotional dysfunction, alcohol and drug abuse, and crime is often very
tight in the lives of many juvenile offenders. "If somebody gives a person an
opportunity, they no longer become a threat to society."