There are many types of crimes, and there are many types of criminals.  Some criminals are murders, some are rapists, some rob from little old ladies in a make money online scheme, and some make the headlines of the NYTimes.  However, without a doubt, the lowest form of criminals are the pimps.  These bottom of the human barrel criminals manipulate, abuse, rape, and profit from the suffering of young girls day in and day out.  Young girls, just like Sara Kruzan, who grow up in broken homes, are forced by these people to give up their most precious human right, the right to self respect and dignity.  Pimps manipulate these young girls, tell them they are “special,” treat them like celebrities, such as an Audrina Patridge or a Jennifer Love Hewitt, and then turn around and rape them, beat them, and force them to sell their underage bodies to decrepit pedophiles.  If there was ever a prime candidate for the term “lowest of the low,” pimps are it.

When it comes to prosecuting these human refuse, however,  one might as well try to get rid of stink bugs.  The simple fact is that Pandering, the legal term for what pimps do, is a very difficult thing to prove to a jury.  To say nothing of the fact that the girls a pimp “owns” are often times so abused and confused that they will try and protect the very man that makes his living off of their daily degradation.  Given that reality, what choice does a young girl like Sara Kruzan have?  She knows that if she goes to the police, and they cannot make a case against her pimp, she will get hit, kicked, raped, and hit some more as soon as her pimp finds her.  For girls like this there is no escape, there is no protection from the law, and there are no maps to a better life.

Sara Kruzan chose to kill her pimp, a man who had manipulated and raped her from the age of 11.  This girl now sits behind bars, hoping that the California justice system will show her some mercy.  What Stop Direct File wants to know is how could it not?  Born to a home life deprived of parental love, raised by a drug addicted mother, manipulated by a pimp, who promised to be the father she so desperately wanted, and then raped and abused into a life of prostitution — how could any justice system blame her for killing her abuser when she was 16?

There is no question that murder is wrong.  However, there are many many times when extenuating circumstances make a person less guilty, or not guilty at all, of a crime.  Kill a man in self-defense, for example.  A woman who manages to kill a man who is raping her would never be convicted of murder by a jury.  Why is it different for Sara Kruzan?  The only difference I see is that she lacked the social network necessary to gain access to a decent lawyer.

At an age when more fortunate children are playing Nintendo 3DS, taking guitar lessons at the Guitar Center, or scheming ways of finding the hidden files on their Dads iPad, this poor girl was being raped, manipulated, and sold as a sex toy by a piece of human filth.  The fact that she was even prosecuted for killing such a piece of slime is bad enough, but the fact that she was given life without parole is even worse.  If there was ever a person who deserved mercy, or a situation where the demands of mercy and justice were the same, it is this one.  Free Sara Kruzan.

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Full House, which among others starred Bob Saget, John Stamos and Jodie Sweetin.  I loved the idyllic representation of a non-traditional family whose comedic antics had adults and kids, alike rolling with laughter. Today, Jodie Sweetin gave birth to another child and headlines went up. That birth drives home for me a very simple truth: the cycle of life repeats itself.

For many that cycle–a child grows into an adult and has children of her own–is not a positive one. A little over a year ago, my cousin gave birth to a new baby. Addicted to meth, I worried about my cousin’s ability to stay clean and raise that child. She probably won’t get the chance because she was recently sentenced to 10 years under the supervision of the Department of Corrections in Colorado (my cousin’s child is under the care of her grandmother).  My cousin’s case is a mild one in comparison with some of  the more devastating effects of child abuse and neglect.

Right now, on the Western Slope, 15-year-old John Caudle is being held for evaluation pending trial for the murder of his mother and step father. He faces 80 years in prison for trying to free himself from the cycle of drug addiction and abuse wrought by his parents–by adults he was supposed to trust. Dozens more victims of abuse who, as children, took the law into their own hands sit idle in prison. Sentenced to terms as long as life without parole, they will likely never have the chance to break the cycle and lead lives as idyllic as the one portrayed in Full House.

Jodie Sweetin had her own struggle with methamphetamine. So far she’s been able to stay clean. She’s lucky; she got a second chance and we applaud her. Don’t child abuse victims sitting in prison for trying to get the same second chance deserve the same understanding?

Children are different from adults. Dozens of studies show that teens, in particular, lack the same decision-making capacity as adults and yet when they become inconvenient; when their parents fail them, we seek to discard them and put them in cold storage–many times for the rest of their lives. Why are those children any less deserving of society’s understanding than Jodie Sweetin?

StopDirectFile.org has been fairly critical of corrections practices in the past. Today, we had opportunity to test some of those criticisms through a tour of the Level 4 Limon Correctional Faciltity. Entering the Correctional Facility under a darkened sky we were not optimistic that our views would change much. We were intimidated by the imposing fences and high walls.  But as we reached the other side of the yard our perceptions began to change.

We were ushered quickly up some stairs and into a meeting room where we were met by Warden Angel Medina and his team. After some brief introductions Captain Ken Sokol began his presentation on the facility’s new STAR Program. Far from intimidating, the program he presented was down right impressive.  Focused entirely on cognitive behavior change, the STAR program interfaces with vocational education and distance learning programs to incentivize individual  responsibility and is designed to positively influence the culture of the entire facility.

While Department of Corrections employees steadfastly clung to the necessity of abandonment practices like administrative segregation, the mission statement of the Limon facility reflected a deep dedication to both security and rehabilitation.

Limon Correctional Facility serves the Colorado Department of Corrections by providing a progressive and comprehensive risk reduction program in a Level IV correctional facility to offenders who continue to, or have demonstrated behaviors that are dangerous, disruptive and/or defiant.

We are a powerful team who work collaboratively with others to interrupt an offender’s risk and threat through proactive assessment, case management, and cognitive restructuring programs that are evidenced-based.

We believe in holding offenders accountable while supporting their change….

Many organizations tout their mission in name, but fail to keep to its letter. But at the Limon Correctional Facility, the mission is sacrosanct among employees. Stopping in the yard before moving to the “incentive pod,” Warden Medina proved this point by quizzing several new corrections officers: “How do we make decisions in our facility?” The answer was almost immediate: “According to the mission, sir.”

Even prisoners who had not yet entered the STAR program understood its value and told us that, while they doubted that STAR had any real-world application or relevance to prison life, it had the potential to hasten their release.  Meeting with prisoners who were in the program, the effects were more than evident. One prisoner told our group that the most valuable element in his education was “to simply stop and think.”

StopDirectFile.org has stated several times over that we support “sentence reform that provides appropriate community protections by removing offenders from society until they are no longer a threat; provides victims with a sense of justice, not revenge; and gives offenders an opportunity for rehabilitation, not cold storage.”

While StopDirectFile.org disagrees with practices like administrative segregation and sentences that offer offenders little incentive to cooperate, we wholeheartedly support both the mission and practices demonstrated at the Limon Correctional Facility. Other facilities and the entire criminal justice system should, and can, learn from Limon’s example.

Alamosa Prosecutor Dan McIntyre wants us to believe that if John Caudle killed his mother and step father it was over a dispute about chores. That would tie things up nicely.  Never mind that the child he wants to try as an adult spent 14 years enduring severe neglect and abuse.

According to a recent interview with family friend Cecile Dinsmore in The Valley Courier, Caudle’s mother Joanne Rinebarger was an abusive drug addict who “killed every bit of joy in [John's] life, and took everything that he loved away from him as punishment.”

…But never mind all that because what is really on trial in the case of the State of Colorado vs. John Caudle is really justice vs. politics; right vs. wrong. McIntyre is seeking two consecutive 40 year sentences. Unless he expects Caudle to live to be 95 in prison, that’s a slow death sentence. McIntyre needs us to believe that he’s trying a “monster” because that is the only thing that justifies the monstrous vengeance he’s seeking.

More than anything, McInTyre needs us to believe that monstrous vengeance is justified. If we don’t believe that vengeance is necessary then he can’t justify it to himself. Like most prosecutors, McIntyre knows that kids are different from adults. He knows there are numerous studies (see references) that show  kids are prone to risky, emotionally driven behavior. McIntyre knows that adolescents, while maturing, are not mature enough to make adult decisions in the heat of the moment.

Finally, McIntyre knows that using the practice of direct file to mete out cruel and unusual punishment to John Caudle is unconscionable. If John Caudle killed his mother and his step father then he ought to be incarcerated, but he shouldn’t be warehoused in cold storage for the rest of his life. As a child, Caudle deserves a chance at redemption.

Trying Caudle as an adult using direct file is wrong. McIntyre knows the difference between right and wrong; he just doesn’t care.

In the end, everything that Dan McIntyre knows makes him more of a monster than John Caudle will ever be.

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?”