A recent op-ed by Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times recounts some of the horrors of juveniles forced to serve prison sentences in adult jails. What’s disturbing about the article is that the fact that 10% of juveniles report being raped and sexually abused in prison probably doesn’t come as a surprise to any of us. What is even more disturbing is that despite our lack of surprise, most of us will digest that information with a shrug and say, “But what can I do?” The answer is on our Take Action and Contribute Pages (The Join Us page is under construction, but for now you can find us on Twitter)

What absolutely angers me is that, beyond our impotent reaction to that information, is that there are human beings who routinely decide to charge children as adults with full knowledge of what may happen to them. Those people are Colorado’s District Attorneys. When is it okay to subject someone to rape and torture? Apparently, it’s fine when you’re seeking reelection.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Kids are different from adults. We don’t let kids under 18 vote or sign contracts; they can’t  drink or become police officers until they’re 21. But in dozens and dozens of cases, DAs charge kids as adults.

DAs, with full knowledge that the types of sentences they are seeking are horrifically vengeful,  continue to use the practice of direct file to mete out cruel and unusual punishments to kids–just to make headlines. Punishing kids–subjecting them to rape and torture–purely for political gain is unconscionable.

It’s time to tell state legislators to end direct file. Now!

Solitary Watch’s recent portrait of “America’s Most Isolated Man”, illustrates a life that many juveniles know well. In contrast to the extremely violent inhabitants of ADX Supermax, more often than not, kids incarcerated in adult facilities are locked down and confined for “safety.” But regardless of the reasons, the psychological effects are the same.  Kids in adult prisons are no strangers to what Tommy Silverstein reports as:

A slow constant peeling of the skin, stripping of the flesh, the nerve-wracking sound of water dripping from a leaky faucet in the still of the night while you’re trying to sleep. Drip, drip, drip, the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, constantly drip away with no end or relief in sight.

What is worse is that officers of the corrections system seem to want to reinforce the idea that solitary confinement is “a clean version of hell.” Is that “clean version of hell” somewhere that kids truly belong? Kids aren’t psychologically equipped to deal with that isolation. Despite repeated indications that Robert Borrego Jr., 17, was suicidal, the decision was still made to send the teen to an adult facility to await trial as an adult. Borrego committed suicide in “segregation” on June 15, 2009.

The problem is that Borrego’s case isn’t isolated. According to a fact sheet by the Campaign for Youth Justice (CYJ), a 17 year old boy named James Stewart suffocated himself in the Denver County Jail after being placed in isolation on an adult vehicular homicide charge. Another report by CYJ shows that teens in adult jails are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than when housed in a juvenile facility.

The bottom line: An adult charge shouldn’t be a death sentence, but isolation makes it 36 times more likely to become one. It’s time to Stop Direct File and let judges do what they clearly do better than District Attorneys: Use discretion.

Below is an open letter from Dietrick Mitchell’s Aunt requesting petitioners for clemency from Governor Ritter. Please download, print,  sign and pass the petition on to friends and family. Make sure to send it to Linda Mitchell before January 29, 2010.

As you know, my nephew, Dietrick Mitchell was involved in a hit and run accident in August, 1991 where a young man lost his life. Dietrick was tried as an adult for First Degree Murder – Extreme Indifference. He was found guilty and sentenced to Life Without Parole.

Dietrick has been incarcerated for over 18 years. Dietrick was 16 years old at the time of the incident and he is now 34 years old. He will be 35 years old in February, 2010.

Normally, a case of this nature would carry a 1 to 2 year sentence but because this occurred in 1991 (prior to the Summer of Violence in 1993), when the State of Colorado was in a panic because “gang activity” had started occurring within the State, numerous minority teenage males were sentenced disproportionally.

It is time for a change and we, as residents of the State of Colorado, should be willing to act on some of these cases now.

I understand the hurt and pain of the victims family and know that a life was cut short senselessly. Our prayers will never cease for the family members of Danny.

However, I am asking you, family members, friends, acquaintances, individuals whom I have established working relationships with to print page 3 (the Continuation Sheet), sign it, have your family and friends sign the sheet and return to me.

We would like to have hard copies of the signed Petition sheets sent to Governor Ritters’ office by January 29, 2010, therefore, I’m asking you to print page 3 and collect signatures. If your signature is the only one on the sheet, please know how much I appreciate that. You can return that signed sheet to me by email at mitchell462@msn.com or mail it to my home address: 17502 E. Ohio Circle, Aurora, Colorado 80017. All sheets can be returned in the same manner.

Thank you for your support!

Linda Mitchell and Family

Download the Petition for Dietrick now.

The Iowa Supreme Court will hear arguments on life sentences for juveniles. According to the Quad City Times, Ruthann Veal’s lawyer feels that life without parole for someone who committed a crime as a juvenile is cruel and unusual punishment.

Veal was 14 when she murdered a woman in a neighboring town and was sentenced to life without parole. But in Iowa children aren’t legally allowed to drop out of school or even operate amusement rides. According to her attorney, Bryan Stevenson,  those laws demonstrate an understanding that even though children can commit violent acts, their minds are still not fully formed.

“[Children are] going to change. Their judgment’s going to improve. Their impulse control will improve; their sense of responsibility will improve. And while they can do things that are tragic and devastating and need to be punished, we shouldn’t conclude that they, like adults, are beyond all hope and redemption,” Stevenson says.

The Iowa Supreme court will issue a ruling on whether Juvenile Life Without Parole is cruel and unusual punishment later this month.

The article States Rethink “Adult Time for Adult Crimes” from CNN shows that at least one state out of fifty is at last facing the folly of charging minors as adults.  The story centers on a teenager whose life is basically ruined because he had the audacity to pilfer a package of chewing gum from another teenager, after which some fisticuffs ensued.  Was that a nice thing to do?  No, clearly.  At the same time, was it a “crime” worth charging him as an adult for?  A pack of gum for a life?  Thank god Connecticut legislators have the brains to see that such a trade is asinine.

When will Colorado legislators reach the same conclusion?  Direct File was invoked 138 times in 2007.  Surely, in some of those cases a serious crime had been committed, but in how many of them was the issue at hand comparable to a pack of stolen chewing gum?  Teenagers oftentimes do stupid things.  Mosh pits, Woodstock, drag racing, and constant texting come readily to mind.  If every teenager who made a mistake were to be charged as an adult, there would be none left to eventually grow into adults.  The fact of the matter is that the power to decide which crimes are felonious enough to warrant adult charges is a power that should not be lightly vested in elected officials, but rather carefully entrusted to judges whose sworn duty to uphold the standards of justice  is not subject to changing political winds.

According to a recent op-ed piece by Bill Johnson at The Denver Post, 179 kids have been killed by abuse or neglect over the last 7 years in Colorado. It’s difficult to even fathom how many of those deaths could have been avoided if there were adequate state resources to address the problem.

A subject that Johnson doesn’t broach, but is absolutely relevant to those tragic deaths, is the number of abused kids we end up incarcerating rather than treating. The tragic and well documented fact is that the State of Colorado doesn’t have the resources to follow up on every alleged abuse, but when abused children attempt to defend themselves–when they sometimes kill to defend themselves–we waste no expense in prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.

That’s what happened to Jacob Ind. It’s what has happened to dozens of Colorado prisoners.

Why? How can we let tragedies like these happen? Is it so we can claim to be “tough on crime?” Is it because we just don’t have the time to care? Maybe someone should ask the Colorado Department of Corrections. Maybe we should ask the Colorado District Attorney’s Counsel. Or better yet, maybe we should ask our state legislators. Someone has to have an answer. Maybe we should accept the shame, as Bill Johnson suggests, and start by asking ourselves–no link provided.

Rape as Rehabilitation?

As the story by Lovisa Stannow in the Huffington Post proves, children incarcerated as adults are raped, and then raped again; often times by the Corrections Officers who are supposed to protect them. Given that, more often than not, it is physical and sexual abuse that drove these troubled children to violence in the first place, one has to wonder if the justice system in this country thinks that rape is the rehabilitation these children need.  What kind of sick logic is it that could think that?    This story is just more evidence that the purpose of our prison system is not to rehabilitate the wayward, as is claimed, but rather is to exact revenge of a most sickening kind.  This needs to stop, immediately. When are DA’s going to wake up to the fact that children, no matter how heinous their actions, are not monsters?  When are we, as a society, going to demand that children be protected from violence, and not forced into it in the name of “justice” and “rehabilitation?”