Children serving Life Sentences in Colorado
The Changing World from the BBC had a moving piece by Vera Frankl on kids who were tried as adults under the whole “get tough on crime” political fad of the 1980 and 90s. Part two of the piece hit much closer to home as it covers the situation of four guys who are serving terms of life in prison for things from accidental homicide to attempted robbery in which someone else in the robbing party shot and killed someone. One of the 16 year olds helped a friend who killed his abusive mother try to cover up that crime.
For these men sentences as boys, there is apparently no hope of parole and no hope of review of their case. Once the decision was made by the DA to try these kids as adults, there is no going back. They are also kept in the same maximum security prisons that adults are. Children as young as 14 can end up in with adult murders!
After hearing this piece, I feel there’s a need for a review of this system. There should at least be a chance for the case and sentence to be reviewed after 10 years or so. As the sister Jennifer of one of the prisoners, Trevor Jones, points out: “I still keep in touch with a lot of my childhood friends; nobody is the same person that they were when they were 16. You change, you change so much. So of course [Trevor] is not the same person [now]. How could he be”.
@ The Changing World
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