Voices of Hope: Perspectives on Juvenile Life without Parole

For months, the country has been anticipating Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States. Politicians, religious groups, advocacy organizations and many others have been speculating about which issues the Pope will address during his visit. Pope Francis is known for embracing humility and drawing attention to injustice, and he’s condemned the United States’ criminal justice system, particularly the death penalty, solitary confinement, and life without parole sentences. The Pope is scheduled to visit the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia this coming weekend.

Nationwide, 2,600 inmates are serving life without parole sentences for crimes committed as juveniles (JLWOP). The U.S. is the only country in the world that sentences kids to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In many states, these sentences were a byproduct of the 1990s prediction and fear of an emerging generation of “super-predators,” which never materialized. The experience of JLWOP isn’t limited to the individuals serving the sentence. We asked several people to share their stories and thoughts on juvenile life without parole. Some individuals initially supported JLWOP, but their experiences with the justice system brought them to an entirely different perspective. 

We thank the following people for sharing their stories with us: Anita Colon, PACFSY/PA State Coordinator – CFSY, from Philadelphia, PA; Edwin Desamour, Catalyst for Positive Change, Philadelphia, PA; Cindy and Keith Sanford, Bloomsburg, PA; Jeanne Bishop, Winnetka, IL. Image credit: Aleteia Image Department, licensed under CC SA 2.0

Jeanne Bishop: My name is Jeanne Bishop, and I live in Winnetka, Illinois, a few blocks from where three of my family members died.

Anita Colon: I’m Anita Colon, from Philadelphia. My brother is serving a life without parole sentence in Pennsylvania.

He was convicted of participating in a crime on his 16^th birthday. He is now 41 years old and has been imprisoned for 25 years.

Edwin Desamour: I’m Edwin Desamour. I was born and raised in North Philadelphia, specifically the east division of the Philadelphia Police Department, sometimes referred to as the “Badlands.” Because of my experience and life, I have a special interest in juvenile justice.

Cindy Sanford: I’m Cindy Sanford. My husband, Keith, and I are from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Five years ago, we met a young man, Ken, who was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile. We learned about him through his wildlife art which was for sale an art store I managed.

Jeanne: In 1990, a 16-year-old murdered my younger sister, Nancy Bishop Langert, her husband Richard, and their unborn baby. Nancy was 25 years-old and three months pregnant with her first child when a teenager broke into Nancy and Richard's home and shot them to death. The young man was arrested six months after the crime, tried and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Cindy: Ken was 15 years-old and homeless at the time of the crime and had been abused and abandoned by both his mother and father. He’d been in prison 11 years by the time we met. Because my grandfather and husband had both been law enforcement officers, we prided ourselves on being "tough on crime" and supported life without parole, even for juveniles. We assumed that young people convicted of serious crimes were either evil or too broken to fix.
Image credit: Leaf painting by Ken, Cindy Sanford

Edwin: I have many friends who are currently serving life without parole sentences. Some of those are my co-defendants, two of which were categorized as juveniles at the time of their arrests. Both of the guys still serving had no intention of killing any one.

Jeanne: At first, I was glad. I wanted him to be locked away forever. I wanted to go forward thinking not of him, but of Nancy and Richard and their baby and how best to honor their lives. I did that by working against gun violence, the death penalty, against everything that sheds more blood and creates more grieving families like mine.

Anita: I’d never thought about juvenile life without parole until my brother received this sentence. Initially, my only thought was how unfair and disproportionate it was. The thought that my brother would spend 60-70 years in prison and ultimately die there was devastating. However, the more I learned about JLWOP, I realized that it was a serious human rights issue. The realization that Pennsylvania regularly sentences children to languish for 6 or 7 decades and die in prison at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world was unbelievable.

Jeanne: But, I had a change of heart about juvenile life sentences, and I wrote about it in my book.  I was challenged to see that juvenile life sentences ignore some basic truths. We have all made grave mistakes; we’ve all done things to hurt people.

Cindy: Over time, we grew to love Ken and were astonished to see in him many admirable character traits. The adult Ken is today is nothing like the troubled, homeless teenager he was at age 15. He’s a model inmate, is working on a bachelor's degree, and he’s been trained by the Department of Corrections as a Peer Support Specialist to counsel mentally ill inmates. Even the DOC recognizes Ken has been rehabilitated and trusts him with such a sensitive job. It seems pointless that society will pay to keep him locked up for life.

Jeanne: Victims' families like mine often argue that juveniles who kill shouldn’t be given a second chance, because our loved ones weren’t given a chance to live; they were slaughtered senselessly. I argue that juveniles who have killed should be given a second chance, but not because they’ve earned it or deserve it. It’s not based on them at all; rather, it’s based on the victims, who they were and what they stood for. Innocent people whose lives were cut short aren’t honored by throwing away the lives of the perpetrators.

Anita: Our society has shifted dramatically from one that favors rehabilitation and forgiveness to one that craves revenge and punishment. This attitude hasn’t helped to reduce crime, only to increase incarceration. Throughout my life, I’ve known and encountered many people that lost love ones to crime or violence. Those that forgive are far more content than those that harbor anger and revenge.

Jeanne: We’re all in need of mercy, of second chances, of forgiveness. God loves all of God's children, no matter what they’ve done. God loves and has a purpose for the person who killed Nancy and Richard and their baby, just as God has a purpose for me.

Cindy: A life without parole sentences communicates to people that no matter how remorseful they are or what they may do to show they’ve changed, their lives have no value. Ken never complains and tries to live a life of purpose despite his sentence, but every day is a battle against hopelessness.

Jeanne: The better way to honor victims is for the perpetrators to grasp the enormity of what they took, to acknowledge the debt they owe for the rest of their lives, to bear the very real responsibility to live out in the world all the good those innocent victims could have done. The argument that victims' families need "legal finality" to avoid further trauma assumes the only route is retribution: lock 'em up, throw away the key. Leave them in prison ‘til the day they die, no matter how sorry they are or how rehabilitated and remorseful they become. That ignores another truth: restoration also brings finality. The case truly ends when the perpetrator walks out the prison gates, restored to his family and community, ready to live a life of service in honor of the lives he took. That is the route I seek.

Cindy: We understand why many are opposed to second chances for youth convicted of homicide, particularly victims of such crimes. The loss they suffered is unrecoverable, and it is only natural for them to want those who caused them such pain to suffer as well. But, we’ve had the extremely good fortune of meeting victims who chose another path: forgiveness.

Edwin: Forgiveness plays a major role in healing. Without it, we remain stagnant. For years I’ve been struggling with this issue and going through the process of learning to forgive myself.

Anita: As my brother grew and transformed from a careless young boy to a mature man, these things weighed heavier and heavier on my brother. He deeply regrets his participation in the crime, and he grieves for the innocent victim that lost her life. Not for one minute does he or our family ever forget the horrible loss suffered by the victim’s family, but this current system isn’t justice. Compounding one tragedy with another isn’t the answer.

Edwin: Because of my experience as a juvenile in prison and my work in my community, I recognize and see the collateral consequences of a lifetime spent in prison.

Anita: My brother’s conviction and incarceration was devastating to my family, especially my mother. My mother wrote to her son every day, right up until the end of her life 11 years ago. The emotions and challenges a family experiences when something like this happens are totally overwhelming and replay over and over again. Fear, confusion, sadness, anger, isolation, hopelessness, shame… Even when our family was able to find some time to be happy or celebrate an occasion, my mother’s emotions were always very conflicted. Happy one moment, then sad thinking of my brother’s situation, and finally guilty for having felt happy at all. I watched these emotions replay over and over in my mother, and these emotions continued to play out over and over again as I raised my own children.

Edwin: Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Cindy: We now oppose juvenile life without parole because we know, without question, that children aren’t irredeemable and very often are victims of violence and abuse themselves. We believe that restorative justice provides the most peace and healing for both victims and offenders. We still consider ourselves "tough on crime," but we now feel that life without parole for minors is an extreme, unmerciful sentence. Today, Ken views us as the parents he never had, and we feel blessed to have him in our family. 
Pictured right: Cindy Sanford (far left), Ken (middle), and Keith Sanford (far right).

Anita: We need legislation that recognizes the fact that some juveniles commit horrible crimes, cause tremendous grief to victims’ families, and deserve to be punished for their actions, yet also recognizes their immaturity and failure to fully comprehend consequences. People fighting crime face daunting challenges, but the answer isn’t to throw away children’s lives forever. Juvenile offenders should be given a second chance, a chance to prove that an extremely poor choice made during adolescence doesn’t have to define who they can become as an adult.