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Call the Governor: Last Push for Fair Sentencing for Youth!

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Thank you so much for your calls over the past weeks for fair sentencing for youth. It made a difference! In the bill reported out of the Conference Committee,  we stopped the 10 year setback for all lifers and we won a right to treatment/education/allowable minimum classification if applicable for those sentenced as juveniles for homicide.

THE BILL, HOWEVER, STILL CONTAINS EXTREME SENTENCING MEASURES FOR CHILDREN CONVICTED OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER. While it provides for initial parole eligibility at 20-30 years in felony murder cases, it enhances the sentences to 25-30 years in cases of premeditation, and to a mandatory 30 years in cases of cruelty and atrocity. Also, there is no right to counsel at parole hearings in the final bill.

The House and Senate voted yesterday to pass this bill, S.2246. The bill will move to the Governor’s desk TODAY

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PLEASE MAKE ONE FINAL CALL TO THE GOVERNOR and urge him to amend the bill before signing it.

1. *THE BILL SHOULD PROVIDE FOR A SENTENCE OF 20-30 YEARS TO LIFE FOR ALL FORMS OF JUVENILE FIRST-DEGREE MURDER.Treating different theories of murder differently ignores the fact that these are KIDS who generally act impetuously, without considering consequences. There should be NO enhanced sentencing for Extreme Atrocity and Cruelty and NO enhanced sentencing for premeditated murder! THEORIES OF MURDER DO NOT ACCOUNT FOR JUVENILE DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR.

2. *RIGHT TO COUNSEL and to ACCESS TO NECESSARY EXPERTS at their parole hearings. It will be impossible for these prisoners to mount an effective parole hearing on their own after so many years in prison.

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CALL THE GOVERNOR ASAP:

 Governor Deval Patrick, Phone: 617-725-4005
Office of the Governor Room 280 Boston, MA 02133
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Things are moving very quickly so we need you to CALL to Governor Patrick IMMEDIATELY to ask him to amend the bill.

*NOTE: These provisions ignore our SJC’s understanding of “the unique capacity of youth to change and be rehabilitated” and are inconsistent with the Court’s finding in Diatchenko, based on extensive scientific evidence and prior rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, that “it is impossible to determine, at the time of sentencing, which youth are capable of rehabilitation and which are not.” The bill that is finally signed into law should provide for a minimum term of not less than 20 years nor more than 30 years for murder in the first degree committed by a person on or after the person’s fourteenth birthday and before the person’s eighteenth birthday.

 

 

MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE TUESDAY JULY 8!

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Who will join me on Tuesday at the State House in our efforts to STOP THE DISASTROUS H.4184? We will meet outside the Hall of Flags in the State House at 10:00 AM on Tuesday. Fair Sentencing for Youth will be distributing coalition stickers and advising members to go to Senators’ offices. Please plan to arrive promptly on or before 10:00 AM, as the Senators will head to the floor at 11:00 AM.
WHO’S IN? I’d love to know if you’ll be able to join me.
The juvenile sentencing bill sped through the state House of Representatives last week and on TUESDAY, JULY 8th, the state Senate is expected to debate its version of House Bill 4184.  YOUR HELP IS NEEDED NOW TO DEFEAT THIS BILL IN THE SENATE!!HERE’S WHY
H. 4184 would thwart the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling in Com. v. Diatchenko (12/24/13) that sentencing children to life in prison – “the other death penalty” – violates the state constitution.H. 4184 would seriously undermine the constitutional principle that juveniles – immature adolescents at the time of their crimes – have great capacity to develop and to rehabilitate themselves and must be granted a meaningful opportunity for parole consideration.  The bill would require that juvenile offenders serving life sentences for crimes they committed as teenagers wait 20 to 30 years before even being considered for parole.

It gets worse.  Not only would a young person have to wait far longer before being allowed to petition for parole consideration (current law is 15 years), but when parole is denied (very few prisoners are paroled at their first hearing), the Board could make them wait up to 10 more years—double the current law allowing a five-year setback—before they can petition again for parole.

Evidence based practices tell us that parole hearings should occur with regularity and should motivate prisoners to change.  Parole hearings should be used to acknowledge a prisoner’s challenges, provide guidance and identify attainable goals, and measure the prisoner’s progress.  Extending the setback period for lifers to 10 years would do exactly the opposite and effectively extinguish a juvenile’s right to a meaningful opportunity for review by the Parole Board.

Tell your state senator not to lock up children and throw away the key.

CALLS
Please call your State Senator and other legislators and urge them to reject these extreme sentencing provisions. See the June posts below if you’ve already contacted your state senator at https://bitly.com/yourMAlegislators

TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS
1. NO YOUTH  should have to wait longer than 15 YEARS before have a FIRST OPPORTUNITY TO GO BEFORE THE PAROLE BOARD.

2. NO PERSON should have to wait longer than 5 YEARS BETWEEN PAROLE HEARINGS.

3. EVERY JUVENILE LIFER should have an ATTORNEY AND A SOCIAL WORKER TO HELP PREPARE FOR HIS/HER PAROLE HEARING.

4. JUVENILE MURDER CASES SHOULD BE HEARD IN JUVENILE COURT by judges with expertise in juvenile matters.

Battle Moves to the Senate #stopH4184

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Thank you all for your calls and the tremendous outpouring on Wednesday, June 18. We heard that at the State House, they had to set up special call centers to handle the tremendous volume. But, as most of you know, H.4184 was passed in the House. Over the next few days, we will know more if the Senate plans to amend H.4184, leave it the same, or if we will have opportunities to promote a much better bill. But we know we do not want H.4184!

THIS ACT CONCERNS JUVENILE SENTENCING AND PAROLE SETBACKS FOR ALL LIFERS (Please see the post below). H.4184 would thwart the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling that sentencing children to life in prison violates the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The bill would require that a juvenile convicted of murder (other than “felony-murder”) serve a minimum of 25 years before becoming eligible for consideration for parole; juveniles convicted of felony murder would serve a minimum of 20 years. This bill would result in de-facto life sentences for young people.

Also, H.4184 bill would allow the Parole Board to impose a 10-year wait – double the current 5-year setback – before an individual who has been denied parole can go before the board again. THIS UNPRECEDENTED TEN YEAR SETBACK APPLIES TO ALL PERSONS SERVING LIFE SENTENCES – THOSE SENTENCED AS ADULTS AS WELL AS THOSE SENTENCED AS JUVENILES.

We ask you to CONTACT YOUR OWN SENATOR https://bitly.com/yourMAlegislators at the State House or in their district offices AND MAKE AT LEAST THREE OTHER CALLS, with this message

WE WANT 15/5 and WE OPPOSE H.4184:

*1.   Youth should have an initial opportunity to seek parole no later than *15 YEARS* into their sentence.

*2.   Everyone should be eligible for further parole hearings, if needed, no later than every *5 YEARS*. Remember to stress that eligibility does not guarantee parole. It only guarantees an opportunity, i.e. a hearing.

CALL
Senate Judiciary Chair, William Brownsberger (D., Belmont): 617-722-1280, William.Brownsberger@masenate.gov

Senate Chair of Ways & Means, Stephen Brewer (D. Barre): 617-722-1540, Stephen.Brewer@masenate.gov

Senate President Therese Murray (D. Plymouth): 617-722-1500, Therese.Murray@masenate.gov

Majority Leader Stanley C. Rosenberg (D. Amherst): 617-722-1532, Stan.Rosenberg@masenate.gov

A senate vote on this bill could occur soon.  We have seen many times that the calls of concerned citizens can make a real difference in the legislative process, so we hope many of you will be willing to CALL to urge Senate leadership to reject these extreme sentencing provisions. There will be more info as we hear about it but for now TIME IS RUNNING SHORT, SO PLEASE CALL IMMEDIATELY.

Jobs Not Jails: Schedule and More!

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One thing you gotta say for the Jobs Not Jails (JNJ) campaign is that they have created an amazingly strong organizing effort on the ground. And no matter how many people actually show up on April 26–hopefully thousands–they have done a great job educating people who might not have heard the word about mass incarceration.

On that day, from 1-4pm, activists, union organizers, students, religious groups, politicians, business folk, former prisoners, and those in recovery will head to the Boston Common Bandstand to rally for jobs instead of prison construction. Then on April 30, JNJ plans to ring round the State House orange banners with the names of some 25,000 who have signed on to stop prison building: each name standing for a vote against a new prison bed and a vote for job creation. That day they plan to lobby legislators for some of the criminal justice bills already on the table including ending mandatory minimum sentencing; ending collateral sanctions and fees regarding prison phone service and driver’s license suspension; reforming classification, levels of punishment, and parole; providing access to rehabilitative services; and shifting the system as a whole by reforming pretrial services and establishing restorative justice practices in Massachusetts.

JNJ has just announced a list of the speakers for the rally on April 26. Those items/names in bold below are confirmed, and those in italics include issues to be addressed, but names of speakers for those issues were not yet confirmed as of this post.

12:30

 

 

Music from the Second Line Brass Band

1:20

 

 

MC Cassandra Bensahih, EPOCA

1:23

 

 

Sunni Ali, Boston Workers Alliance

1:27

 

 

Stop & Frisk   

1:30

 

 

Phone Rates – Committee of Friends and Relatives of Prisoners

1:34

 

 

MUSIC

1:45

 

 

Shackling

1:55

 

 

Bail Reform

2:00

 

 

Mandatory Minimums

2:05

 

 

Addiction Funding – Massachusetts Org for Addiction Recovery

2:10

 

 

MUSIC from Revolutionary Snake Ensemble

2:30

 

 

RMV collateral sanctions – EPOCA

2:35

 

 

Keturah  Brewster, Youth Jobs Coalition

2:40

 

 

Minimum Wage

2:45

 

 

MUSIC from Revolutionary Snake Ensemble

2:55

 

 

CeCe McDonald, activist/trans woman incarcerated in men’s prison

3:00

 

 

Larry Turner, math teacher and father of a murder victim

3:10

 

 

Rev. Paul Robeson Ford, Union Baptist Church

3:15

 

 

Donnelle Wright, Jobs Not Jails

3:20

 

 

Candidates for Attorney General (Warren Tolman confirmed)

3:40

 

 

MUSIC 

 

 

According to Steve O’Neil, executive director of Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement (EPOCA), the idea of JNJ came about after many across the state fought against Three Strikes legislation in 2012. O’Neill wanted to build on that groundswell and said in an interview that it was “a realization that for deep-seated change to occur in the criminal justice system, more coalition and leadership building were needed.” He added that “It is not just about flaws in CJ system…It is also about the hollowing out of labor in our economy—We are not even doing job training anymore,” and  it is especially difficult for those with criminal records to get jobs, he said.

On their website Jobs Not Jails lists some initial and far-reaching goals of the campaign against mass incarceration:

Cassandra Bensahih, a Community Organizer for EPOCA, and MC for the day of the rally, is a former prisoner who describes herself as “hooked” on the way EPOCA does organizing. She appreciates the second chance they gave her and has spoken all across the state to get signatures and raise awareness. She said in an interview she feels the current Jobs Not Jails campaign is a significant part of a movement to end mass incarceration because “it addresses racism and poverty and looks at legislative reform.” For her, it’s important for her kids to have a better life; she is particularly interested in diversion to treatment for drug offenders instead of jail.

While there are more than 100 organizations which have signed on as supporters of JNJ, an active group also fighting for job creation is the Youth Jobs Coalition (YJC), with branches in Worcester, Brockton, and Boston. Founded by Dan Gelbtuch, YJC is a coalition of 40 youth and community groups from across the state which work together to create more employment opportunities for teens—especially difficult in a sagging economy.

Keturah Brewster, a senior at Boston Latin and lead organizer for YJC who will speak at the rally has been tirelessly collecting signatures on JNJ petitions. She experienced racial discrimination when she and her friends were just hanging out harmlessly in Boston. She described, in an interview, how police officers ambushed three of her male friends and beat up one, and watched as they were whisked away to jail; one was accused of assaulting an officer. She is worried about the racial issues in incarceration. Likewise, Devens Archer, another YJC activist is concerned about incarceration of youth, and also about job opportunities after prison. He said he’s trying to collect 1000 signatures.

O’Neill said that many legislators think their constituents are uneducated and maybe even unconcerned about these issues, but “They’re wrong.” Each person who shows up or signs a petition, he said, demonstrates the strength people have to lobby for change and demand public spending to create jobs rather than prison cells.

For more on JNJ thoughts on job creation, see here, and come to the rally on April 26!