Murder is a terrible, heinous crime. No doubt about that. We need to question though how we best respond. Especially our knee jerk reaction of lock ’em up and throw away the key. Are all murders and all murderers the same, equally deserving of the harshest punishment?
He, like many others, created a false debate and dichotomy. It’s not rehabilitation or justice. It’s rehabilitation AND justice.
What if the killer is an abused child? What if a teenager didn’t pull the trigger but was at the scene?
The US Supreme Court is grappling with these issues right now. It just heard an appeal filed by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), involving two cases of teenagers sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Bryan Stevenson, executive director of EJI, represented Evan Miller and Kuntrell Jackson, convicted in Alabama and Arkansas of homicides committed when they were 14 years old. Miller and a friend beat a 52 year old neighbor and set fire to his trailer. Jackson was involved in a robbery; his co-assailant shot the video store clerk.
What disturbs me is that no consideration was given to Evan’s life of abuse; his father abused him so much that he tried to hang himself when he was only five years old. What about the adults who “physically abused him, failed to provide him with a safe place to live or other basic necessities, and taught him to use drugs and alcohol,” as his lawyer wrote?
None of this mattered due to mandatory sentencing; Evan was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison with no parole. And this is justice?
Please don’t misunderstand me. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. Offenders must be held accountable, no excuses.
The question is how do we best hold offenders accountable and support victims’ healing? What is justice?
It’s counterproductive to buy into an artificial us vs. them, choosing between the needs and rights of offenders or victims.
Mary Johnson’s 20 year old son was killed by 16 year old Oshea Israel. Mary thought Oshea was an animal, hating him and wanting him to be imprisoned for the rest of his life. After a restorative meeting in prison, Mary’s anger and hatred left. Mary founded From Death to Life; Mary and Oshea were among those outside the Supreme Court, proving that youth do deserve a second chance.
I also think of Azim Khamisa, whose son was murdered by 14 year old Tony Hicks. Tony became the first child under 16 to be tried as an adult in California. Azim set up the Tariq Khamisa Foundation in honour of his son and I had the pleasure of hearing him with Tony’s guardian Ples Felix speak out against youth violence. Azim eventually met with Tony in prison. He says he saw “victims at both ends of the gun” on that fateful night.
There are many such stories of healing and transformation. Some families of victims advocate for teen killers.
Many family members of victims also speak out in favour of life imprisonment. This is understandable. Many, like Mary, have that initial response. I would never tell victims that they need to forgive and will respect whatever they are feeling.
I also argue that victims should always be given the opportunity to participate in a restorative process. Sometimes the benefits of restorative justice for victims are overlooked. Overall, evidence shows victims are satisfied, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder are reduced, and they experience less fear, anger and hurt.
The UK organization Why Me? promotes the right of victim’s access to restorative justice, to get the chance to talk with the person who caused them harm. The US organization for murder victims families states: “if the victim initiates and desires restorative justice, and the offender is willing and able, we believe that restorative justice is a right.”
When Scott Burns, head of the National District Attorneys Association arguing in favour of life without parole, was asked if a teenager’s ability to change and express remorse is worth something, he said: “Well, that’s the debate, isn’t it? Is it the goal to rehabilitate someone to see if they change? Or is the goal to do justice for the victims and others?”
He, like many others, created a false debate and dichotomy. It’s not rehabilitation or justice. It’s rehabilitation AND justice.
We are able to hold offenders accountable, support victim healing, build community, and respect the human rights of everyone. Isn’t this worthy of being called justice?
I hope the justices recognize what justice could really look like, and not only hold our teenagers accountable but also give them the opportunity to learn and make amends. There should be no throw away kids. We can do better than that.
I agree that knee jerk reactions to sensitive cases when someone life is tragically snatched away is clouded by duress, anger, and pain that results in clouded judgements,justified or not. “WAREHOUSING” those who commit crimes is never the long term solution. Rehabilitation, of course needs to be factored in with the individual’s history, if history has been documented at all. I’m not referring to only criminal history in which prosecutor’s potray to be the only writing on the wall, but the individual’s family, and educational history as well so we can analyze the picture and not just a dot on an paper.
Mary Ellen Johnson, author of the book “The Murder of Jacob” writes about this very issue, a rather famous case in Woodland Park, Colorado where Jacob Ind was physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually abused by both his mother and father all his life. He made several attempts to get help from his school counselors whose answer to it was to call his parents who, in turn, punished him even more severely. Finally, at the end of his rope, he murdered his parents and now serves life in a Colorado prison. The book tells the graphic story of his life investigated by journalist Mary Ellen Johnson who dedicated the rest of her life to serving children who serve life.
Thank you for your comments! Richard I agree that warehousing is certainly a problem. Yes it is hard when emotions run high, when there is understandably outrage and pain from loss. Yet a sensible, effective, holistic approach is required.
Wow Jeannette, I greatly appreciate you sharing this story and book. It gave me chills. So very sad.
Thank you for sharing this with us, it is through testimonies like this that help us to redirect the discussions to; what is justice? and who needs justice? and what is justice objective?.
I am a great supporter of restorative justice and rehabilitation theories and principles and believe that everyone (young and old) deserves a second chance in life.
I belong to a Network on Reducing Re-Offending (NRR) in South Africa, it is fairly a new network focusing at simillar issues.(I will send the group a link to our website once it is fully functioning) I have over the years heard of stories that made me sad and furious at the system, and now I have a platform to make a difference through the network it will be easy to make comments and influence policy and bring hope to those who have lost the light. The information you shared strengthen us and makes us more determined to continue making a difference were we can.
Young people are our future and we cannot stand still while they perish. Keep up the good work
Tshego Maswabi (SA)
Thank you so much Tshego for your contributions. I couldn’t agree more that we all deserve a second chance in life and that youth really are our future. And yes we must continue to go deeper into the question of what is justice.
Please do post a link here to your website. I’d love to learn more about your work and am happy to do what I can to support it.
I facilitated a workshop in South Africa some years ago on restorative justice. You have a beautiful country, full of hope.
It is a pleasure to meet you here; I can’t tell you how much it warms my heart that my blog is bringing people together across the miles.
Another excellent blog that reminds me how great our debates were in class. In addition Alana Abramson would be a great person to discuss this topic pertaining to youth and restorative justice, both are in her wheelhouse.
Nonetheless, I 100% agree. In our adversarial system, the focus tends to be one party VERSUS another, in which there must be a clear winner and loser. However as you elegantly point out the system misrepresents the idea that both sides cannot work together towards a common goal “rehabilitation AND justice.”
Another issue that ties in with above is the “western” ideal of justice is “wrong.” Wrong in the sense that too often our focus is solely on punishment. In these cases our system seems to follow the adage “when it’s an eye for an eye, everyone goes blind.” The conclusion being that if we focus only on negative attributes and actions, then we lose and not gain or work on a solution.
Lastly, as mentioned in numerous classes from various brilliant professors at KPU, if longer/harsher sentences prevent or deter crimes, then places with the death penalty or chopped off hands WOULD have the lowest crime rates. If so, look at certain US states (e.g. Texas), Singapore, Saudi Arabia and numerous others.
P.S. My apologies for any incoherency, there are so many routes that can be taken for another great topic, and I have not kept up with my writing in the off-season (summer semester).
What a wonderful surprise to hear from you! Thanks Chris for taking the time to share your thoughts. I’m glad you found this post to be a contribution. Yes there is so much that could be discussed! Best wishes.