Activism and Culture

I am a member of the Campaign to End The Death Penalty, Chicago Chapter. Recently, I wrote a prisoner with the object of providing him some access to the outside world. I’ve always been mortified by the extent to which prisons are crowded, people are sentenced, and others are executed in the United States.

My husband says the death penalty is necessary. He has a whole shelf full of these books about why rehabilitation programs, for some inmates, don’t work. He always tells the story of a certain senator who allowed a furlow program, letting a several-times-convicted violent criminal leave on a weekend pass.  That criminal ended up murdering several people. He says, this is why the death penalty and life imprisonment are necessary.

I agree that there are some people who won’t ever change. I believe that everyone, though, as the ability and capacity to change. When the government takes away a life it didn’t give, the government is not taking into account that ability to change.

But the death penalty isn’t the only grievance. In 2007, Frontline issued a documentary called “When Kids Get Life.” The documentary follows five inmates who have no hope of parole and who were put in U.S. jails when they were just children. Their crimes included the murder of a sexually abusive stepfather, being in a car during a robbery that resulted in a murder, and having knowledge of a murder.

In the United States right now about 2,000 people are sitting in jail cells who were convicted as children and have no hope of ever getting out.

Imagine all the things you want to do with your life when you’re 18, 25, 33, 57, 62, and 89.

I think, in this country, it is legitimate to be afraid, even if you are a law-abiding citizen that some day something will go terribly wrong. In a world of freedom, why can’t we fix these laws concerning imprisonment?