Note to lifer family:

This article is part of an excellent series the New York Times is doing on lifers. It's also running in papers all over the country.

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U.S. leads world in number of life sentences for youth

ADAM LIPTAK; The New York Times
Published: October 3rd, 2005 12:01 AM

OCALA, Fla. – About 9,700 American prisoners are serving life sentences for crimes they committed before they could vote, serve on a jury or gamble in a casino – in short, before they turned 18. More than a fifth have absolutely no chance for parole.

Juvenile criminals are serving life terms in at least 48 states, according to a survey by The New York Times, and their numbers have increased sharply over the past decade.

Rebecca Falcon is one of them.

Read the full text here:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/5226290p-4747823c.html

I posted the NYTimes urls and a paragraph in world prison news

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1427492#post1427492

and

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151525

Life without parole, the most severe form of life sentence, is theoretically available for juvenile criminals in about a dozen countries. But a report to be issued on Oct. 12 by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International found juveniles serving such sentences in only three others. Israel has seven, South Africa has four and Tanzania has one.

The US has 2,200. We live in a wonderful version of a religious and moral country, don't we?
__________________

Thanks Titan! ;)

I'm also trying to post URLs for newspapers carrying the stories that don't require registration (for those who don't want to register with NYTimes).

Thanks Titan! ;)

I'm also trying to post URLs for newspapers carrying the stories that don't require registration (for those who don't want to register with NYTimes).

A good idea...although I registered once more than a year ago and it was free and I have used it ever since...although now some articles are not free (I tend not to post those...unfortunate since they include some very good ones....if I had the time I would summarize them)

The NY Times also had a video...which I thought I posted the link to but will have to look again.

Qwerty,
Thank you so much for posting these articles. Should Kenny's parole get denied, I am hoping to get some kind of grass roots campaign here started among the lifer families to get legislation introduced where they have to release them after serving their minimum time in.
These articles will help provide documentation on what other states are doing or not doing, as well as needed statistics on the recidivism rate for lifers that have been released.
Unbelievable to think that a country as progressive as the United States is so archaic in our corrections system. It is tragic for all of us caught up in this no-win situation.
Leslie

Here was the video link

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/10/01/national/20051001_LIFERS_AUDIOSS.html