A four-part series, “Teen crime, adult time,” in last week’s Denver Post showed how Draconian laws passed after a surge of youth violence in the 1980s and ’90s have sent Coloradans as young as 14 to prison for life without possibility of parole.
Some of the youngsters committed monstrous crimes while others had peripheral roles in offenses by others. Many of these youths were themselves abused physically and sexually. Treating them as throwaways often satisfies society’s quest for justice and punishment, but the law shouldn’t exist solely as a means of retribution.
Reporters Miles Moffeit and Kevin Simpson noted that Colorado is one of 14 states where juveniles can be charged with adult crimes carrying sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole. Colorado’s 1993 law gives a district attorney sole discretion to decide whether a youth is tried in juvenile or adult court. Also, in 1990, the penalty for first-degree murder was set at life without possibility of parole, or death. (Mercifully, Colorado doesn’t execute minors.) But by the decision of a prosecutor, a teenager can be sentenced to life behind bars. There’s no lesser punishment for a teen convicted of felony murder in adult court, even one who had no role in the actual killing.
Since 1998, Moffeit and Simpson learned, 1,244 juveniles have been convicted as adults in Colorado. Currently, 45 juveniles have been sentenced to life without possibility of parole.
To show they were tough on juvenile crime in the “Summer of Violence” era, state lawmakers authored a misbegotten system with no middle ground between the short sentences meted out in juvenile court and life without parole for youths tried as adults. The DA alone makes the call on whether to charge a youth as an adult. That’s too much power to put in a DA’s hands. A decision that could send a 14-year-old to adult prison for life should be made by the courts after careful consideration.
We’re not so naive as to believe that there is no such thing as a bad boy: Father Flannigan obviously never met Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Strange as it seems, Texas – death-penalty capital of the free world – has found a way to salvage teens who most would consider beyond hope. Youths facing adult prison time are sent to the Giddings State School for a grueling program that strips away the self-delusions and fantasies that many youthful offenders hide behind, forcing them to take ownership of their crimes and recognize the damage they’ve inflicted on others. More important, many young offenders discover human feelings for the first time. George W. Bush enthusiastically supported the program as governor of Texas.
The Giddings program is detailed in-depth in “Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth,” by longtime journalist John Hubner. “Intensive” is too mild a word to describe the regimen. The success rate is impressive, and kids nobody would have given a chance have completed high school and college and built productive new lives.
Colorado’s Youth Offender System isn’t really comparable to Giddings; funding and support have been too half-hearted.
Last week at the Capitol, the Pendulum Foundation’s Juvenile Justice arm rallied support from groups including Amnesty International and the Criminal Defense Bar to support a bill to make juveniles serving life terms eligible for parole.
House Bill 1315 co-sponsored by Rep. Lynn Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, and Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver, would allow such youths to be considered for parole after 40 years, but a shorter period might be in order for some youths, based on their crimes and whether they’re judged good prospects for rehabilitation. Some experts suggest possible parole after 20 years.
But it’s also important that the critical decision of whether to charge a youth as an adult rest with the court – not the prosecution.
We no longer execute juveniles in light of scientific findings that show adolescents’ brains aren’t fully developed. For similar reasons, we shouldn’t lock up so many and throw away the key.
