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VI. Life without Parole in Adult Prison

“Doing time” is difficult for any prisoner. Prisons are tense, cheerless, and often degrading places in which all inmates struggle to maintain their equilibrium despite violence, exploitation, lack of privacy, stringent limitations on family and community contacts, and a paucity of opportunities for meaningful education, work, or other productive activities.

But “doing time” is particularly challenging for those who come to prison as adolescents or very young adults. They often lack the physical and mental coping mechanisms that older adult prisoners use to maintain their mental health and self-respect. Not only are teens ill-equipped to handle prison, it is also an unlikely place for them to gain the life experiences and education necessary for healthy mental and physical development. Penitentiaries in the United States are not designed to further rehabilitation, and youth offenders sentenced to life without parole are often barred from participating in the few programs that do exist. And youth offenders serving life without parole face an additional and daunting challenge—they must come to terms with the fact that they will live in prison for the rest of their lives.

We have data on age at admission for 420 of the 2,225 youth offenders currently serving life without parole in the United States. As illustrated in Table 8, the average age at admission to prison was eighteen years old; the youngest entered prison at age fourteen and the oldest was twenty-six years old. Nevertheless, 29 percent, or just under one-third of all the offenders studied, were admitted to adult penitentiaries while they were still children.105

Table 8

Age at Admission

Number of Offenders

14.00-14.99 years

1

15.00-15.99 years

5

16.00-16.99 years

31

17.00-17.99 years

86

18.00-18.99 years

138

19.00-19.99 years

111

20.00-20.99 years

31

21.00-21.99 years

7

22.00-22.99 years

7

23.00-23.99 years

1

24.00-24.99 years

0

25.00-25.99 years

1

26.00-26.99 years

1

Total:

420 child offenders

Source: Data provided by thirty-eight state correctional departments and additional other sources for the states of Alabama and Virginia.

Adjusting to Life in Adult Prison

No one, offenders included, expects prison to be a pleasant place. Upon incarceration, all inmates must face the taxing psychological and physical challenge of adjusting to prison, and some fail or just barely pass the test. Prisoners soon learn that their psychological and physical survival depends on emotional control, heightened guardedness, resistance to or modeling of violence and aggression, and an ability to negotiate the deceptive behaviors of others.106 As one youth offender said, “[M]y life in prison has been like living in hell. It’s like living and dying at the same time, and with my sentence the misery never ends. Life in prison is no life at all. It is a mere existence.”107

There is a considerable incongruity between the physical or mental immaturity of young prisoners and the kinds of experiences and people prison forces them to confront. Starting in the 1960s, sociologists and psychologists found that the negative psychological effects of imprisonment increase as incarceration continues, but begin to reverse as prisoners near the time of release.108 Offenders serving life without parole know that they will never leave prison, meaning that for some, the negative effects of imprisonment can be expected to increase and indeed, may never lessen.

Youth offenders interviewed and corresponded with for this report recalled experiencing a wide range of emotions while adjusting to prison. They reported initial feelings of fear, anger, loneliness, or hopelessness. Some youth offenders contemplated or even attempted suicide. Those who had been in prison for ten years or less were still in the midst of the adjustment process.

The Reality of the Sentence

Once in prison, child offenders must come to grips with the reality of a life-long prison sentence. For example, Jacob O., who was seventeen at the time of his offense of aggravated first degree murder, explained his understanding of his sentence, “In all reality it was not until about the age of twenty-two that I truly understood [the sentence]. I did not know that this would mean that my whole life was going to be gone. If I would have known at the time what it all meant I would have tried to take the plea.”109

When he was interviewed for this report, Thomas M. said about his trial:

[It] was very emotional and I broke out crying in court. I don’t know if I fully understood but I kinda understood when they just said, “guilty, guilty, guilty” and “life” y’ know? As time went on, I’m really starting to realize how serious it is. I was young, I wasn’t really too educated. When I got locked up, I was in the eighth grade. All my education has come through the years of being incarcerated.110

Matthew C. told a researcher for this report:

I don’t think it really sunk in until I’d been in prison for a while and had some time to look over my case and then I realized, “man they’re trying to keep me here.” You know what I mean? It kinda sunk in.111


Case Study: Dean F.

Dean F. was fifteen years old at the time of his crime. He comes from a financially secure family and was living at home in Missouri with his mother and brother. He is incarcerated in Iowa, because his crime occurred in that state. He had prior juvenile charges of property damage, truancy, and felony tampering for stealing a car, and he had been held back in school for one year.112

At the time of his interview for this report, Dean said he spent most of his time reading history, philosophy, and law in his cell. When asked about his life when he was fifteen, he explained, “I lived with my mom, my parents are divorced and my dad is a university professor in Texas. I was a normal teenager. I had skipped school some and stole a car once before, but nothing violent. Never anything violent.”113

At the time of the crime, he said: “[I and] three friends decided to run away from home. We decided to take a car and I brought along a hunting gun. We crossed into Iowa and then we started having car trouble. Eventually, we decided we should try to steal another car so we could keep going, and so we pulled over a lady [using flashing lights that Dean’s friend’s father—a postal worker—had on top of his car] and we were going to ask her to give us her car and scare her using the gun. Everything went O.K., but then it looked like she wasn’t going to give us her car, so I walked back to our car. I wasn’t even there when my friend started freaking out and shot her and then stabbed her over and over.”

The victim, a thirty-two-year-old woman, had been shot once in the face and stabbed thirty-three times while sitting in her car. Press accounts of Dean’s co-defendants’ trials explained that evidence was introduced placing two twin brothers (Derek S. and Burt S.) at the car. Derek was alleged to have grabbed the gun from his brother Burt, who had shot the victim. Burt then stabbed her repeatedly with a knife.114 Burt ultimately confessed to shooting and stabbing the victim.115

At Dean’s trial, the prosecutor emphasized the fact that the gun used in the killing was Dean’s, and he also introduced testimony that Dean instructed Burt to shoot the driver of the car, a claim that Dean denied when he was interviewed for this report.116

Some of the statements made by Dean and his codefendants during police questioning prior to their arrests were suppressed by the trial court, and the state filed an interlocutory appeal. In reversing the trial court’s decision to suppress the boys’ statements, the state appeals court examined the trial record and summarized the evidence relating to Dean’s role in the crime:

“[Dean] knowingly participated in the robbery by driving the Blazer and chasing down [the victim]. The jury heard testimony all four defendants knew about the gun which belonged to [Dean]. All four knew it was loaded and it would be used to threaten the person they stopped. Under this theory, if the jury believed [Dean] did not know a murder would occur, the killing is the different crime. The stabbing and shooting occurred because [the victim] did not cooperate with her attackers. This was in furtherance of the robbery, the offense in which [Dean] knowingly participated. A murder is a reasonably foreseeable crime when using a gun to threaten robbery victims. The defendants actually used the gun, and when that was insufficient to carry out the plan, Burt S. stabbed [the victim] to death. We find these facts are sufficient to support the jury’s verdict under the theory of joint criminal conduct.”117

Dean’s co-defendant, Burt S., was ultimately convicted for the crime of first degree murder. Dean was convicted for “aiding and abetting” first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

The prosecutor in Dean’s case conceded at trial that Dean was not standing near the car when the brutal murder took place.118 In a subsequent interview for this report, a researcher asked the prosecutor why he sought a life without parole sentence for Dean, who was so young and who was clearly not the “triggerman.” The prosecutor said unequivocally that he remains convinced that life without parole was the correct sentence for Dean.119

Fear and Anger

In Iowa, a former inmate, who spent six years in prison with a young woman serving life without parole, recalled that when her friend first came to prison at age seventeen: “She had such an anger problem. You just wonder where someone’s boiling point is, you know?”120

Fear and anger can often lead to violent, disruptive behavior among inmates. In a study of children serving a variety of sentences in adult prisons throughout the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice found that correctional staff characterized youthful offenders as “more volatile and more difficult to deal with” than adults.121 Of course, young inmates often use violence to protect themselves from harm as much as they use violence to express their anger. Whatever their motivations, offenders may attack other inmates or guards. A male offender, who was fourteen at the time of his crime and fifteen when he entered prison, told a researcher for this report about his feelings and violent behavior:

Even when I went to [prison] I was telling everybody, “I don’t need, I don’t want nobody.” [Friends and family] were just writing to me and I said, “Don’t write me. Don’t . . . I might never get outta prison. If I do, I don’t know when it’s gonna be.” I didn’t wanna deal with nobody. My mentality was just bad, you know?

Because you know I couldn’t deal with it, I couldn’t deal with doing all that time, having that time, being so young, I couldn’t deal with it. And it caused me a lotta problems when I first came to the penitentiary because I had the mentality, “I have a life sentence. I don’t care about nothing, I got a life sentence, why should I care about anything?” So there wasn’t nothing I wouldn’t do. Wasn’t no fight I would back down from. Even with the officers . . . so that caused a lot of problems. [I] fought on officers, [I was] stabbing officers with knives . . . You know, fought on inmates, ‘cause of that mentality, ‘cause of having that time . . . I haven’t [killed] but I’ve beat on inmates. . . . Yeah, I used locks, knives, pipes, lead pipes, you know?122

When he was interviewed for this report, a treatment director at Mitchellville prison in Iowa said that teenagers with life without parole sentences “tend to go through the grief cycle twice.”123 He continued:

The first time it has to do with the simple fact of entering adult prison, so they pass through shock, anger, depression, and then acceptance. But for the lifers, they go through all four stages again—often several years later or whenever the reality of their sentence finally sinks in. . . . The child offenders [with life sentences] are used to acting out and getting kicked out of programs. We have to discipline them often when they first arrive.124

Since youth offenders tend to be more unruly and violent than older inmates, they are often placed in long-term isolation or super-maximum security confinement, which correctional officials across the country use to punish and minimize disruptive behavior. In Colorado alone, out of twenty-four child offenders serving life without parole who were interviewed or corresponded with for this report, thirteen inmates, or just over 50 percent, had spent time in Colorado’s supermaximum prison, Colorado State Penitentiary (CSP). Dennis Burbank, an administrative officer at CSP, offered an explanation for why youth offenders serving life without parole often end up confined in long-term isolation:

One [factor] is age—when you come in at a young age with life without, there’s not a whole lot of light at the end of the tunnel. Also, it’s kind of a guy thing: the young ones come in with a lot of fear, anxiety, paranoia, and they want to make a name for themselves—so they have a tendency to act out. And if they are part of a gang, they are almost required to act out . . . any of the young guys, they see it as a feather in their cap to work themselves to CSP . . . and they don’t think about the repercussions. . . .They say [to themselves] “I’ve got to impress everyone with what a bad-ass I am.”125

Jackson W., who entered prison at age seventeen, told a researcher for this report that his violent defensive behavior in prison had landed him in long-term isolation in Arkansas:

If you are over here, you are with people who doing two years. And if you have life, they don’t want me doing nothing to the person with two years, so they keep me confined [in isolation] until I show a certain type of mentality. And I don’t got that mentality. My mentality is . . . I refuse to walk around with a cane, or with my eye knocked out, or my teeth knocked out … by not protecting [my]self.126

Text Box: Jackson W. is fourteen in this picture; he was sixteen when he committed his crime.
© 2005 Private.

Membership in a “security threat group” (prison gang) is also a cause for transfer to isolation in many states.127 Ethan W. committed his crime at age seventeen and entered prison at age nineteen. He explained to a researcher for this report:

You got me in a place where I’m surrounded by nothing but gangs, so the only way not to be a victim of one of those gangs is to join them. But when you become a member, you’re a part of a security threat group, so now they say “we’re gonna keep you in a room alone for the rest of your life.”128

Life in long-term isolation usually involves segregating inmates for twenty-three or more hours a day in their cells. Offenders contacted for this report described the devastating loneliness of spending their days alone, without any human contact, except for when a guard passes them a food tray through a slot in the door, or when guards touch their wrists when handcuffing them through the same slot, before taking them to the exercise room or for a shower once a week.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have systematically documented and advocated against the human rights violations inherent in the incarceration of individuals in super-maximum security prisons throughout the United States.129 Prolonged periods of isolation can be devastating for anyone, but especially for young offenders.130 Few of the offenders contacted for this report entered super maximum security isolation while they were still children; however, long periods in isolation raise human rights concerns for all prisoners, irrespective of age. According to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the international body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “prolonged solitary confinement of the detained or imprisoned person may amount to” torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.131 Moreover, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, an expert prison-monitoring body elected by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, “pays particular attention to prisoners held, for whatever reason . . . under conditions akin to solitary confinement.”132

Long-term isolation can have lasting negative effects on inmates. Troy L. came to prison at age sixteen after committing first degree murder at the age of fifteen. He spent “something like 300 days in an isolation cell” when he was awaiting trial and had been transferred to isolation several times since for “different reasons.”133 Troy said he had spent so much time in isolation that he was unable to feel comfortable relating to and living around other people, especially now that he was housed in the general population barracks:

If you just see what these barracks are like, they got us piled in there like some cockroaches. And I’ve spent so much time over the years . . . in just cells and lockdown for different reasons. And it’s hard for me to deal with just having so many people around. So much—I can’t think—you know what I mean?134

Isolation, Loneliness, and Hopelessness

Everyone in prison experiences isolation and loneliness. It is a direct function of being cut off from family, friends, and the rest of society. One young man who came to prison at age fifteen, and who is now twenty years old, wrote: “Every day I grow inside. But I have no room to grow in here . . . It’s lonely. Your surrounded by 1,500 people and it’s still so lonely.”135

However, psychologists suggest that some prisoners, “especially those serving very long sentences [use] withdrawal and self-imposed isolation . . . as a defensive reaction to the anticipated loss of . . . outside social support.”136 Using isolation as a defense takes its toll on prisoners who may experience “protracted depression, apathy and the development of a profound sense of hopelessness.”137

Most prisoners, particularly those serving long sentences, lose social support and family connections. The difference for youth offenders serving life without parole is that they are likely to be much more dependent on family relationships than older inmates and may suffer these losses at an earlier age, causing them to endure their loss longer than other inmates.

Addison R. was convicted of attempted murder, armed robbery, and criminal sexual conduct. He entered prison at age fifteen and wrote at age thirty-five, “Since being in here I’ve lost my whole family. I don’t know where they are or if they’re dead or alive. I’ve been on my own in here since I was a kid fifteen years old. Twenty years done went by.”138

Jeffrey B. was fifteen years old when he entered prison with a life without parole sentence for the murder and sexual assault of a seven-year-old boy. He wrote in 2004, “I don’t hear from my family. They cut me off when my mother past away in 1982. That was my last visit. My last phone call was in 1991, when my sister hang up on me.”139

John E. committed second degree murder and was sentenced to prison in Pennsylvania when he was seventeen. He was forty-six when he wrote:

Text Box: Jeffrey B. was fifteen in this photo and when he committed his crime.
© 2005 Private.

Text Box: Ethan W. was between sixteen and seventeen in this photo, and he was seventeen at the time of his crime.
© 2005 Private.

I would like to be able to live again and see all those things I miss from being lock up because the world has grown up so fast and I mess out on it. My situation for the last twenty some years has been very hard on me because I have seen most of my family members pass away on me . . . just last year I lost my mother, so what is left for me and my situation but hope someday I walk out of here without being carry out in a body bag? I was seventeen then, now I’m forty-six.140



Some state prison policies aggravate the inherent isolation of imprisonment. In the state of Colorado, “a person may only be approved to visit an offender if there was an established relationship prior to the offender’s incarceration.”141 Inmates must provide documentary proof of such a relationship.

One inmate serving life without parole in Colorado, Ethan W., who was twenty-five when he was interviewed for this report and nineteen when he entered prison for a crime committed at age seventeen, had lived in juvenile group homes for years before coming to prison. He explained that the last documentary proof he had to show he had a relationship with someone other than his family members was a grade school yearbook. He said:

So that means the only people that I can show them I knew when I was twelve, from some photo when I was in school, those are the only people that I can know for the rest of my life? I mean what am I supposed to do? I don’t understand it? I mean … what am I supposed to hope for except for dying tomorrow maybe?142

Several youth offenders, both male and female, spoke about needing to “wear a mask, twenty-four / seven” in adult prison, which naturally led to their isolation and loneliness.143 Psychologists have observed that some prisoners “learn to find safety in social invisibility by becoming as inconspicuous and disconnected from others as possible. These prisoners retreat deeply into themselves, trust virtually no one, and adjust to prison stress by leading isolated ‘lives of quiet desperation.’”144 Whether they enter prison as teenagers or young adults, child offenders serving life without parole must face the possibility that their loneliness and hopelessness may continue until they die.

Brandon S. was seventeen when he was arrested and convicted of first degree murder. He entered prison at age eighteen. Brandon wrote: “I’m very depressed because life without parole is the reality I face every day, all day. I’m paranoid about people in general. I trust no one and I honestly believe there is no good person on the face of the earth.”145

Perhaps it is not surprising that the psychological strain of a sentence that will only end in death causes youth offenders to contemplate suicide. There are several factors associated with suicide in prison that are exacerbated by both the youth of the prisoner and the length of the life without parole sentence including:

[L]oss of outside relationships, conflicts within the facility, victimization, further legal problems, physical and emotional breakdown . . . When the inmate cannot effectively cope with these stressors, the result can be varying degrees of suicidal behavior—from ideation to contemplation, attempt, or completion.146

A young male prisoner, who committed his crime of felony murder when he was seventeen and came to prison at age nineteen, told a researcher for this report:

I started doing drugs [when I first came to prison]. I mean I always smoked weed [marijuana], but then I started doing like heroin and stuff. Sometimes I try to escape. I went to mental health one time and they put me on a pain killer. I told them I was starting to have suicidal thoughts . . . and they said that was normal and just go back to my cell. I cut my wrist [shows his wrist with multiple scars to a researcher] . . . Well, I thought that drugs helped me to escape. But then reality is still here when I wake up.147

Richard I., who was fourteen at the time of his crime and entered prison at age sixteen, had suicidal thoughts for many years and would cut his arms frequently. He said to a researcher for this report:

When I went to prison, I was around all the—up all night—all the violence. I was like, “man I gotta get out of this—how am I gonna get out of this prison?” I can’t do no life sentence here at that age. And so I thought of that [killing himself]. Gotta end it, gotta end it. . . . .I’ve got so many cuts on me . . . Razor blades. They give us disposable razors, you pop it out.148

Ethan W. who entered prison at age nineteen, described hope as the only thing preventing him from committing suicide:

The only reason I don’t kill myself is ’cause there’s still hope. I mean at least if you got a dog that you know is never going to get adopted, that’s never going to live free again, I mean they kill it. They put it to sleep. That’s more humane than keeping him in this cage the next twenty years, making him live with his own shit and his own piss. I came in here at seventeen years old and what are they going to do, keep me for sixty or seventy years? I mean c’mon now . . . that’s a long time!149

Incarceration alongside Adults

Some child offenders interviewed or corresponded with for this report recalled that while they were still children—that is, age seventeen or younger—they were housed with adults in jail or prison. This finding coincides with a national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, which found that only 13 percent of institutions surveyed in the single year of 1997 maintained separate units for child offenders.150 This same study also cautioned that “the presence of separate housing for youthful offenders does not necessarily mean that all youthful offenders were housed in these separate facilities.”151

Richard I. was fourteen at the time of his crime and was jailed in Arkansas at that same age, though he soon turned fifteen. When interviewed for this report, he spoke about the county jail where he was held. He called the jail “a dungeon.” He continued:

Text Box: Richard I. was age fourteen both in this photo and when he committed his crime.
© 2005 Private.
They had roaches. They had broken windows, it was terrible . . . I was there about eleven months, so I probably had anywhere from thirty to forty people come through and stay in there with me. So I had pretty much a lot of “cellies.” I always had one and they was always adults.152

He told a researcher for this report how much he dreaded Friday and Saturday nights when the police would arrest adult “drunks” and “throw them in jail.” Richard said:

Some would be hollering, some would be violent . . . some would be telling their life story, some would be cussing. You know, I was fifteen then in county jail and to have to work with alcoholics is kinda hard. I would just try to get them to go to sleep. I would just try to read a book, put my face in a book, and . . . give them a cigarette or something.153

Clifford S. was seventeen years old when he was put in an Arkansas county jail with adults: “I was with them older guys . . . And you know you’re around older guys, prisoners, you know, killers, you know what I'm saying? Looking at you crazy . . . I was [thinking] I gotta get out. It’s like a living hell, you know? It’s hell. It’s rough in there.”154

Scott J. told a researcher for this report about being jailed at age seventeen in Arapahoe County, Colorado. He said:

They put me in a mental ward where they put all the wackos. . . . They put me in a cell with these two [adult males]. And I remember I woke up one time and this big . . . guy was like looking over at me, calling me “mom” and telling me to stop hitting him . . . and then the other guy like whooped his ass . . . [T]he toilet was like right here [gesturing to the space directly in front of him] and it smelled like piss all the time.155

Non-binding standards of the American Correctional Association (ACA) support placing youth offenders, including youths who are transferred or sentenced to adult prison, in separate juvenile facilities.156 The ACA also recommends keeping children in pre-trial detention out of sight and sound of adults, in accordance with federal “sight and sound” requirements.157 International human rights standards are more definitive and clear: children should not be held with adults and should be separated further according to sex, age, and conviction status, meaning that children convicted of a criminal offense should not be held with children awaiting trial.158

Access to Education and Vocational Programs

Regardless of whether they entered prison at fourteen or twenty, young offenders are incarcerated during the years when education and skill development are most crucial. Until they turn eighteen, most child offenders imprisoned in the U.S. are able to take courses preparing them for the General Educational Development (GED) exam or a high school diploma. In states such as Pennsylvania and Arkansas, obtaining the GED or diploma is mandatory for prisoners under the age of eighteen. In other states, such as California and Colorado, inmates can choose whether or not to take the test.

In the course of doing research for this report, we discovered two offenders who had entered prison prior to their eighteenth birthdays but had not passed their GED exams and were functionally illiterate. One, who entered prison at age seventeen, explained how he managed to answer a short letter sent to him by a researcher for this report:

I was in the [prison] building like I am now, and I let this guy, [a] charity dude, he can read and write you know? He read it [the letter]. He figured it out . . . He read the questions and [wrote the responses] . . . I did my best, you know?159

Among the youth contacted for this report, this young man was an exception. Most of the child offenders contacted who had entered prison before age eighteen were literate and had obtained their GED diploma. For example, Stacey T. was fourteen at the time of his crime, fifteen when he entered prison in Pennsylvania, and sixteen when he passed his GED exam. Ironically, he explained to a researcher for this report, “[A]lthough I graduated, I was too young to receive my diploma, I had to wait two years until I turned eighteen years old to receive it in the mail.”160

Warren P., who came to prison at age fifteen, said:

I was in the GED class when I first came to prison, when I was fifteen I nearly maxed out [completed] the pre-GED [courses] and I was told I was too young to take my GED [exam]. I had to be sixteen. But I had life in prison with adults. I got my GED soon after turning sixteen.161

Once a youth offender has obtained his GED or its equivalency or has passed his eighteenth birthday, he faces an uphill battle to obtain additional educational opportunities in prison. All of the offenders contacted for this report were incarcerated in prisons with further education and vocational training programs, but only a few managed to gain access to these programs.

One who was able to do so, Gerard C., came to prison at age eighteen. He wrote:

I have received my GED . . . I completed college course hours . . . through Arkansas State University. I maintained a 4.0 G.P.A. and my courses were geared toward Sociology and Psychology . . . Then they said classes would be paid for [only] if you were within five years of parole. I did not fit those criteria; therefore, I had to discontinue taking classes.162

Text Box: Gerard C. was fifteen in this photograph and seventeen when he committed his crime.
© 2005 Private.


Gerard’s college studies stopped abruptly because of a cutback in the nationwide “Pell Grant” program, which once included funding for prisoners’ post-secondary education.163 Today, the federal government provides funding only for “incarcerated youth under the age of twenty-five and within five years of release to acquire functional literacy, life, and job skills through the pursuit of a postsecondary education.”164 By definition, youth serving life without parole will never be within five years of parole and are therefore disqualified from this program. Post-secondary education is only available to youth offenders serving life without parole if someone can pay the course fees, which tend to be beyond the means of most offenders’ families.

Cleveland B. entered prison at the age of seventeen after committing his offense at age sixteen. He explained:

I have received my GED. I also have graduated an eighteen-month program for behavior modification. It took twenty-eight months. I can do nothing else because the state offers nothing else for life without-ers, but I am working on college courses in criminal justice through [a] correspondence course which I pay for with the help of my family.165

As noted, these young prisoners were in the minority. Most child offenders who have been sentenced to life without parole are denied access to further education or vocational programs for a very simple reason: the state and the federal government do not expect them ever to leave prison and so reserve the already underfunded programs for those who will.

Joe L., who was seventeen at the time of his offense and nineteen when he came to prison, explained to a researcher for this report that his prison did not “offer me anything else [other than the GED] because of the length of my time.”166 Darby B., who entered prison at age sixteen, wrote: “I’m not allowed to participate in counseling because of the amount of time I’m doing. . . . Most programs [have] been eliminated by the state. I spend most of my time doing nothing.”167 When asked about educational opportunities in the Alabama prison he was held in, Holman C., who entered prison at age twenty, wrote: “None. Can’t go to school with LWOP. I was told I had to pay for trades [vocational classes].”168

Cindy J., who was fourteen at the time of her crime and sixteen when she entered prison, wrote: “My institution doesn’t allow LWOP inmates to attend vocational training.”169 Angela B. came to prison at age nineteen and wanted to take a college correspondence program. However, she wrote, “[S]ince I am serving LWOP, I’m not eligible. I guess they think since I am going to die in prison anyway, why educate us?”170

Text Box: Cindy J. was thirteen in this photo, and she had just turned fourteen at the time of her crime.
© 2005 Private.
Correctional authorities in a number of states told a researcher for this report on the record that inmates serving life without parole sentences were at the “bottom of the list” for getting access to vocational training.171 Officials cited their state’s need “to put our resources where the inmates who are going home can access them first.”172 Others also mentioned the cut-backs in federal funding described above. Most officials were complacent about these policies; however one did admit to a researcher, “it’s kind of hard to see them with all that potential just sit here for the rest of their lives.”173

Susan McNaughton, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, told a researcher, “Those going home have a better chance of getting into a [vocational] program.”174 However, she said that youth offenders with life without parole are not “sitting around doing nothing,” because the “prison industries program” is a “good one for them.”175 But Pennsylvania’s own policy states “inmate employment coordinators use the inmate’s treatment level, treatment plan, custody level, and length of time remaining on his or her sentence to determine eligibility for referral to the program.”176 By definition, offenders sentenced to life without parole will have the longest amount of time remaining on their sentence.

Darryl T.’s sentence of life without parole prevented him from accessing the college education that a court psychologist recommended during his trial because of Darryl’s “high mentality.”177 Darryl, who came to prison in California at age eighteen, wrote:

LWOPs cannot participate in many rehabilitative, educational, vocational training or other assignments available to other inmates with parole dates . . . The supposed rationality is that LWOPs are beyond salvagability and would just be taking a spot away from someone who will actually return to society someday.178

Darryl’s explanation was confirmed by Margot Bach, Public Information Officer with the California Department of Corrections. She told a researcher for this report, “Those with the longer sentences are not going to get the same programming as someone who is closer to leaving prison. It’s a question of resources.”179

International human rights standards state that children in prison must be provided with basic primary and secondary education and even vocational or college-level opportunities.180 Even those child offenders who enter prison after reaching age eighteen are entitled to further education. According to the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (which applies to adult prisoners):

Provision shall be made for the further education of all prisoners capable of profiting thereby, including religious instruction in the countries where this is possible. The education of illiterates and young prisoners shall be compulsory and special attention shall be paid to it by the administration . . . [and] [r]ecreational and cultural activities shall be provided in all institutions for the benefit of the mental and physical health of prisoners.181


Case Study: Trey J.

Trey J. was seventeen years old when he was convicted of felony murder for the underlying crime of robbery. He attributed his crime to his need for money to support his drug habit. When he was interviewed for this report, he explained that he and another boy had, “developed a ‘con scheme’ to get some money from another juvenile under the pretext of selling him a gun.”182 He said that he accidentally squeezed the trigger during the transaction, killing the victim.

Trey wrote about his life at the time of his crime, emphasizing, as he did in a later interview, the role of his drug abuse: “My life situation at the time of my crime was not great but not awful either. I was more messed up than my situation. My family was clearly dysfunctional though. I was a heavy drug and alcohol abuser and had been for a few years prior to this crime. I was not in school as I was expelled a number of times and after I turned seventeen truancy courts no longer had legal involvement in my school situation. I really was a mess, I had several convictions of minor charges in my teen years concerning fights and drug and alcohol abuse, etc. . . . I was just out of touch with reality and didn’t know how good I had it and how I could have really done something with my life in light of the advantages and opportunities I had.”183

Violence

Violence is endemic in U.S. prisons.184 It affects all inmates, whether teenagers or adults. But child offenders who enter adult prison while they are still below the age of eighteen are “five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff and fifty percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon than minors in juvenile facilities.”185

These chilling statistics testify to the inability of correctional authorities to provide safe correctional environments for all prisoners—an inability that is itself a reflection of prison overcrowding, staff shortages, and inadequate prison programming. Regardless, all inmates, whatever their age, have the right to be free from threats to their physical safety. Both U.S. constitutional law and international human rights law require authorities to provide safe and humane conditions of confinement.186 Despite these norms, not one of the offenders contacted for this report had managed to avoid violence in prison.

Assault

Almost all youth offenders contacted for this report suffered physical violence at the hands of other inmates. They rarely reported the assaults because of the harm it would do to their reputations in prison, and because they assumed correctional authorities would do little to rectify the problem. For example, Michael S. was seventeen when he entered prison. He wrote:

Text Box: Michael S. was about sixteen in this photo and sixteen at the time of his crime. 
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On several occasions I have been physically assaulted. I reported the first assault, but from that point forward I deduced that it was best to remain silent as I cannot afford to be labeled [an informant] in my current circumstances.187

Sometimes guards are allegedly to blame for assaults on young inmates. Joe L., who was nineteen when he entered prison, told a researcher for this report that “a few times” he was “slammed pretty hard by the guards here.”188 Another young man who was fourteen at the time of his offense and eighteen when he entered prison said, “I was having problems from other inmates that were violent to me and the staff wouldn’t move me, they left me there on purpose to be abused by the other inmates.”189

Every youth offender described getting involved in fights in order to defend him or herself. Gregory C., who entered prison at the age of sixteen, was typical. He said, “I’ve been in fights with prisoners on many occasions. Luckily, I received nothing more than a few black eyes, fat lips, chipped tooth and swollen knuckles.”190

Others had more serious injuries, requiring hospitalization. Jackson W., who entered prison at age seventeen, said that he was hospitalized in prison in Arkansas because, “I got stabbed a couple times . . . I got my head busted by locks. That’s a small weapon, but they still hurt.”191 Andrew H., who was sixteen at the time of his crime of murder and entered prison that same year, explained that he was hospitalized after being “stabbed in the left shoulder helping a guy that I knew when others tried to rape him.”192

Patricia L. was sixteen years old when she was sentenced to life without parole. She entered prison at age twenty. Patricia wrote:

People here who are in and out prey on the young and use us for things. It’s scary to wake up every morning and not know what will happen (get beat up or tested) . . . I’ve gotten beaten up by women who just don’t like me for whatever their reasons.193

Text Box: Patricia L. is fifteen in this photo, which was taken less than one year before her crime.
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Some facilities are infamous for violence. Several of the young male offenders interviewed for this report had been confined in Varner Unit, a prison dedicated to housing youth offenders convicted of serious violent crimes. Before Arkansas stopped sending all such offenders to Varner, inmates and guards nicknamed it the “Gladiator School.” The practice of sending all youth offenders to Varner Unit has since ended.

Richard I. began serving his prison sentence at age sixteen. His story was typical of those inmates who had spent time in Varner. He told a researcher for this report what life there was like:

I got to Varner on a Thursday night, and they . . . said “tomorrow is Friday. . .that’s fight night.” Friday come around . . . all these fellows, black dudes, got together with ski masks, made up ski masks, go down there and go find a white dude and jump on him. I didn’t get jumped on the first weekend, it was like the second weekend when I got into a fight. I guess it was my turn.194

Richard claimed his injuries were not severe—just cuts and bruises—as a result of the fight. However, he said that at Varner:

I’ve seen people . . . they’d set the edge of his blanket on fire. Or I’ve seen people get wooden locker boxes dropped on themselves. Seen people, they put locks in their socks and hit people while they’re sleeping. I’ve seen people get jumped on while they sleeping . . . Seen stabbings. Seen a person get killed.195

Sexual Abuse and Rape

As Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported elsewhere, female inmates are particularly vulnerable to violent or otherwise coercive sexual relationships with corrections personnel. Abusing the power imbalance inherent in their positions, male corrections employees sometimes allegedly engage in abusive “sexual contact with female prisoners absent the use or threat of force or any material exchange.”196 However, they also at times use force or bribery to obtain sex from inmates. The practice of assigning of male staff to guard women in prisons and jails in the United States is itself contrary to international standards.197

Carolyn K. entered prison with a life without parole sentence at age seventeen. She wrote, “[O]ne official put me in a situation to have sex with him and I did.”198 Cheryl J., who began serving her life without parole sentence at age eighteen, described being approached by a male guard for a sexual relationship. When Cheryl was interviewed for this report, she said, “[H]e wanted to have sex but I was scared you know? I might get pregnant, you know, so that’s why I didn’t. I liked him . . . but I was young [then].”199 She also spoke in general about how common sexual contacts with male guards were:

A lot of them [female inmates] do favors for the guards. The ones who work at sally port [a security gate between a prison’s interior and public areas]. To get tobacco, they give guards head . . . it’s beginning to be more male guards instead of female guards [here] and they’re taking advantage of it. They think all females wanna be touched and watched by them but that’s not true!200

Cheryl also complained about having to expose her naked body to male guards during showers and about offensive pat searches. She said:

We have a lot of male officers here, and we have to expose ourselves to them and I don’t think its right, the way the shower has see-through curtains and then we have a shower with no curtains. And we’re told to get in it and the mans just be in there, they come in and count. And we’re naked, and if you cover up or try to hide, that’s a disciplinary . . . I don’t know what they be thinking but they be staring. They don’t stop looking or try to play it off. They just looking you know. And it’s just bad. . . .

They pat us down, but they pat us down so unprofessional! They supposed to put their hands out but they go over your breasts like this [she squeezes her breasts]. And [they] come all the way up your legs. I mean so many womans have complained about it here. [But they told them] “They’re only doing their job, they got womans at home, they don’t want ya’ll inmates.” But that’s not true! You’ve had several inmates get pregnant by guards here, so what do you mean?201

One young male offender in Arkansas, who was sixteen at the time of his crime and had just entered prison at age nineteen when he was interviewed for this report, alleged that guards in his prison had sex with inmates for money. He told a researcher that in order to have sex with a guard, “You gotta have money though, like fifty to one hundred bucks . . . it’s not really sex, it’s just kinda masturbation . . . it’s both female and male guards that do it.”202

Human Rights Watch has previously documented the extensive incidence of rape in U.S. prisons.203 It was unsurprising that almost every young male offender raised the problem of rape.

Brian B. wrote about what happened soon after he entered prison in Pennsylvania at the age of seventeen with a life without parole sentence:

Sheriffs took me to the Western Penitentiary. They lied to the warden telling him I were eighteen, which I had not yet become. I were housed in an open poorly supervised unit, and that evening a group of large adult men rushed into my cell, holding me down they began pulling my clothes off while another took a syringe over to a spoon that another inmate were holding a lighter under. He drew up whatever was in the spoon. I were then injected with whatever it were. And then raped. Once found by the officers I were taken to a holding area, cleaned up, and placed on a van to another prison at around 3:00 am.204

Almost every male inmate we interviewed described having been approached by other prisoners for sexual favors, or having to fight to protect themselves from rape. Rape is a particular risk for child offenders, because they come to prison so young. Warren P. wrote that when he first came to prison, at the age of fifteen:

I was the target of covert sexual predators. Adults would pretend to be your best friend to get close to you, then they would try you . . . Officers would be hard on me more so than the adults for they believe that the younger inmates need rougher treatment.205

Tyler Y., who came to prison at age eighteen for a crime committed at age sixteen, wrote:

[W]hen I first when to jail / prison, when I was young, it was disorienting and scary, like a fish thrown in water not knowing how to swim. Everyone seemed big and dangerous and threatening, I was challenged and intimidated a lot. Canines [sexual predators] stalked me, and at all times I expected to be attacked.206

Eric R., who came to prison at age sixteen, wrote:

When I first came to prison attempts were made to lure me into out of the way places so that I could be sexually assaulted, fortunately I was so scared and wary that I managed to avoid being victimized. I was very small when I came to prison.207

Luke J., who came to prison at age nineteen, but admitted that he had always been “real skinny” and always looked younger than his age, said, “When I first came into prison [a] dude told me that he was gonna make me his ‘bitch’ and he beat me up real bad.”208

Trent H. entered prison at age fifteen. He told a researcher for this report,

You know I’ve seen a lot of that. Dudes get turned out. I’ve seen dudes get raped, where they get choked out and raped. Seen where dudes get knives pulled on them and get raped. I’ve seen them do it willingly too. You know, I’ve seen them do it for food, and commissary. Yeah I’ve seen a lot of it. Like you and me sitting here right now bearing witness to it. Personally.209

The problem of sexual violence lessens as child offenders grow older in prison. Addison R., who entered prison at age sixteen and wrote to a researcher for this report at age thirty-six, explained:

I’ve gotten older, a little bit more mature, a little bit bigger in physical size, and the older prisoners have stopped preying on me for sex. . . . [Before] I’ve had to stab other prisoners for preying on me for sex.210

Occasionally, prison authorities recognize the problems a youth offender is having and take corrective measures. Jeffrey W., who entered prison at age seventeen, wrote:

Text Box: Jeffrey W. is around sixteen in this photo, and he was seventeen at his crime.
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At the beginning, the focus was on surviving . . . Naturally, I was the target of sexual predators and had to fight off a couple rape attempts. . . . These were hardened, streetwise convicts who had been in prison 10, 15, 20, 30 years and I was a naïve 18 year old who knew nothing about prison life. … Because of the rape attempts on me … state prison officials [said] I should have been classified as needing protection. I was soon sent to the state’s protection unit . . . I stayed there for seven years until I was returned to the general population—older, wiser, and capable of surviving general population.211

Sexual abuse and rape constitute serious human rights violations whenever and wherever they occur. The fact that youth offenders’ particular susceptibility to sexual abuse and rape is well-known heightens the responsibility of adult prison authorities across the country to take actions targeting young prisoners to prevent its occurrence.212 Yet, Human Rights Watch has found elsewhere that “rape occurs in U.S. prisons because correctional officials, to a surprising extent, do little to stop it from occurring.”213 Apart from those officials who may be guilty of these acts themselves, this is mostly because correctional authorities tend to deny that the problem exists in their facilities, or they actively avoid knowledge about rape and sexual abuse in order to evade liability in prisoner lawsuits, which require proof that the prison official had actual knowledge of a substantial risk and that he or she disregarded it. 214

At the same time, prisoners’ attitudes and fears can make preventing sexual abuse and rape a challenge. As noted above, some youth offenders are unwilling to report rape because of the debilitating effect it can have on their reputations in prison. Moreover, youth offenders interviewed for this report felt unable to ask for a placement in protective custody, since other inmates would view that as a sign of being an informant for correctional officials, or as an implicit admission that a youth offender was unable to protect himself. Youth offenders believed that such harmful implications for prisoners’ reputations put them at greater risk of violence once they were released from protective custody. Finally, protective custody itself often means being housed in units whose conditions are similar to those of isolation (discussed above): twenty-three hours per day in a cell, restricted privileges, and no educational or vocational opportunities—making protective custody an unappealing solution for many inmates.

Potential for Rehabilitation

The paradigm of prison as a place for rehabilitation lost public support and political currency decades ago in the United States.215 Most prisons pay nominal attention at best to improving inmates’ skills and lives, regardless of their sentences. Concern about promoting successful re-entry is gaining currency and recognition as an effective means of preventing recidivism but has yet to make a meaningful impact on the nature of most prison programs.

Prospects for rehabilitation are even worse for individuals serving life without parole. The sentence itself contains an unmistakable message that is never lost on offenders serving it. As one young woman put it: “I feel like they threw the key away on me.”216

By sentencing children to life without parole, society tells them unequivocally that their lives are worthless, they are beyond repair or redemption, and any effort they may make to improve themselves is essentially futile. There is also inherent cruelty in denying a child any possibility of rehabilitation or reform. Child offenders serving the sentence receive these messages much earlier in their lives than adult offenders with the same sentence.

As noted above, not only is the message of the life without parole sentence resoundingly clear to offenders, it offers correctional authorities a means to allocate the increasingly scarce rehabilitative resources at their disposal. U.S. society has instructed its correctional systems to invest in those who may rejoin society someday, and to disengage from those who never will.

As a result, some child offenders serving life without parole remain poorly educated, even illiterate. They frequently are angry and violent. They may use drugs and join prison gangs. Many are also unable or unwilling to come to terms with their crimes or exhibit any signs of remorse. Also working against their rehabilitation is the truncation of child offenders’ development. Despite most offenders’ physical and chronological maturity when they were interviewed for this report, many felt and even behaved as if they were still children. Time and again, inmates would describe feeling “stuck” at the age they were when they entered prison. For example, Samantha L. came to prison at age seventeen and was interviewed for this report twenty years later, when she was thirty-seven. She said:

You know what’s the worst part of being young and being in prison? It’s like you never get to the place where other people are at. It’s like you’re always looking for guidance, you can’t trust other people, and even as you get old, you still feel like you are seventeen. I mean sometimes I see myself in the mirror and I see that my body, my skin, is getting older but inside I feel like I’m still seventeen.217

Nevertheless, there are many youth offenders serving life without parole who withstand these negative forces and work hard to rehabilitate themselves. One common sign of this drive towards rehabilitation is their unwavering desire to learn new things, however basic.

Charles L. came to prison at age nineteen. He spoke with obvious pride about what he was learning on “hoe squad” in the Arkansas Department of Corrections:

Text Box: Charles L. is sixteen in this photo, and he was seventeen at his crime.
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I ain’t ever had no job. But now I’m on hoe squad. Know how to plant everything. Cantaloupe, squash, onions, green beans, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, peas, sweet potatoes . . . everything they grow, eggplant . . . they grow everything. There’s a lot I know since I been here.218

Text Box: Nelson H. was sixteen in this photo and at his crime.
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Other offenders serving life without parole dream of playing a positive, redeeming role in society at some hypothetical point in the future. Nelson H. came to prison at age eighteen for murdering an elderly woman, and he was twenty-seven when he was interviewed for this report. Nelson spoke constantly and in great detail about his passion to become a “search and rescue” worker. He studied books on rescue techniques, physical conditioning, and first aid. He also trained and tested himself against the standards applied in rescue workers exams. He wanted to fight forest fires, or rescue people caught in other natural disasters because he believed that if he could save at least one life that would somehow compensate for the one he took.219

Other offenders held similar hopes of redemption. Troy L., who was fifteen when he murdered his abusive father, was interviewed for this report at age twenty-four in June 2004. He wrote in a subsequent letter:

I would be ever grateful, in fact, for the chance to spend my life now for some good reason. I would go to the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan or Israel, or jump on the first manned mission to Mars . . . .[I]f the state were to offer me some opportunity to end my life doing some good, rather than a slow-wasting plague to the world, it would be a great mercy to me.220

Some offenders manage to avoid drugs and alcohol in prison, a relevant accomplishment when substance abuse was a factor in their earlier criminal behavior. Thomas M., who was fifteen at the time of his offense and was interviewed in prison at age twenty, told a researcher for this report:

My dad is an alcoholic and he used to beat my mom real bad, and me. I remember one Christmas my dad got so drunk he threw my mom through the Christmas tree and it fell out the window. It can’t get much worse than that . . . At that time [of the crime] I thought I was cool, getting high, cruising around on the streets with my so-called friends. Since I’ve been in prison, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to smoke cigarettes, do drugs, homemade liquor. But mark my words, I’ll never smoke or drink or do drugs whether I spend the rest of my life in prison, or whether I am free. All I want is a chance. I’ve come a long way as far as who I am and what I want in life. . . . I’ve really changed.221

Bradley W. was sixteen years old when he committed first degree murder and when he entered prison. He wrote:

Now, having just turned thirty-two I am struck by the realization that I have literally spent half my life in prison. Please make no mistake, there is not a question in my mind, I do deserve to be in prison. I killed a man . . . I have very heavy regrets. But in a twist of irony, I also feel grateful for the opportunities I’ve had which have enabled me to become a vastly better person than I believe I ever could have been absent my incarceration.222

Case Study: Timothy C.

Timothy C., now thirty-three years old, is serving a sentence of life without parole in Iowa. According to Marty Marsh, his prison psychologist (who informed Human Rights Watch that his client had asked him to communicate with us about Timothy’s case), Timothy has said he was raped by his father from the age of five.223 After several years of this sexual abuse, Timothy said that his mother brought him to live with her and her boyfriend, who soon began to violently beat Timothy in fits of anger.When Timothy was fifteen, his father re-married and his new stepmother was very warm to him and invited him to return to live with her and his father. Timothy said he was afraid that the sexual abuse would begin again, but he was desperate to flee his mother’s boyfriend’s violent rages; he also longed to have a stable home environment as well as his own bedroom, neither of which he had ever had before.

Timothy decided to return to his father’s home, where his stepmother became the only adult in his life to show a nurturing interest in him. For the first few months, Timothy lived for the first time in a stable family environment and, also for the first time, he had his own bedroom. However, Timothy said that his father soon began sexually abusing him again. His stepmother did nothing to prevent the abuse, and according to the psychologist, after about a year and a half, she also began abusing Timothy, allegedly masturbating him forcibly and teasing him about the size of his penis. According to Marsh, this abuse and final breach of Timothy’s trust were emotionally and mentally devastating, leading to a severe psychological crisis. Timothy eventually murdered his stepmother and set fire to the house he shared with her and his father.224

According to Marsh, Timothy did not disclose any history of physical and sexual abuse during his trial and only began speaking about it in 2001—fourteen years after the crime occurred. Since then, Timothy has confronted his father about the abuse through correspondence. His father’s only response was to call the prison to ask the correctional staff about whether his son was contemplating bringing criminal charges against him.225

Marsh believes that Timothy’s history of abuse, his ability to confront his trauma and to work on maintaining his psychological health, and his educational and social rehabilitation in prison make Timothy “the one individual [he] ha[s] worked with—out of some eight hundred cases in prison—who is most deserving of a second chance.”226




[105] The states of Alabama, Illinois, and Louisiana were unable or unwilling to provide us with data on youth offenders’ ages at admission to prison.

[106] Craig Haney, “Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain: Confronting the Coming Crisis in Eighth Amendment Law,” Psychology, Public Policy and Law, vol. 3 (December 1997), p. 499 (“Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain”)

[107] Letter to Human Rights Watch from male prisoner in Lapeer, Michigan, July 23, 2004 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[108] For documentation of increased effects, see, e.g., Stanton Wheeler, “Socialization in Correctional Communities,” American Sociological Review, vol. 26 (1961), p. 697; Peter Garabedian, “Social Role and Processes of Socialization in the Prison Community,” Social Problems, vol. 11 (1963), p. 140. For documentation of decreased effects, see, e.g., Robert Johnson and Hans Toch, “The First Cut is the Deepest: Psychological Breakdown and Survival in the Detention Setting,” The Pains of Imprisonment (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 1982); “Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain,” p. 499.

[109] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Jacob O., Washington State Penitentiary, Walla Walla, Washington, March 26, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[110] Human Rights Watch interview with Thomas M.

[111] Human Rights Watch interview with Matthew C., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 27, 2004 (pseudonym).

[112] Iowa v. Smith, Smith, Privitt, and Speaks, 546 N.W.2d 916, 923 (Iowa S.Ct. Apr. 17, 1996).

[113] Human Rights Watch interview with Dean F., Anamosa State Penitentiary, Anamosa, Iowa, April 6, 2004 (pseudonym) (unless otherwise noted, all statements attributed to Dean F. in this case study were obtained during this interview).

[114] “Teen's Defense to Take the Stage in Hauser Murder Trial,” Telegraph Herald, September 23, 1996.

[115] “Prosecution Begins Smith Case,” Telegraph Herald, June 13, 1996.

[116] Iowa v. Speaks, 576 N.W.2d 629 (Iowa Ct. Appeals Jan. 28, 1998).

[117] Iowa v. Speaks, 576 N.W.2d 629 (Iowa Ct. Appeals Jan. 28, 1998).

[118] “Prosecution Begins Smith Case,” Telegraph Herald, June 13, 1996 (quoting prosecutor Tom Miller, who said Dean went up to the victim’s car, then walked back to the Blazer before the attack began). See also Iowa v. Privitt, 571 N.W.2d 484 (Iowa S. Ct., Nov. 26, 1997) (One of Dean’s co-defendant’s trials in which the court establishes that only two of the boys were involved in the fatal confrontation at the victim’s car).

[119] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Tom Miller, November 22, 2004.

[120] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Heather Taylor, Iowa, October 27, 2004. However, Taylor told Human Rights Watch that she believed that her friend (Alexis V., who is featured elsewhere in this report) had “really grown up in prison . . . she’s such a strong lady, such a strong girl. And she really carries herself well. She’s doing real good in there now.” Ibid.

[121] Institute on Crime, Justice and Corrections and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Juveniles in Adult Prisons and Jails: A National Assessment (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, October 2000), p. 63, available online at: http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/bja/182503-1.pdf, accessed on September 14, 2005 (Juveniles in Adult Prisons and Jails).

[122] Human Rights Watch interview with Trent H., Cummins Unit, Grady, Arkansas, June 23, 2004 (pseudonym).

[123] Human Rights Watch interview with Treatment Director at Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, Mitchellville, Iowa, April 5, 2004.

[124] Ibid.

[125] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Dennis Burbank, Administrative Officer III, Colorado State Penitentiary, December 1, 2004.

[126] Human Rights Watch interview with Jackson W., East Arkansas Regional Unit, Brickeys, Arkansas, June 21, 2004 (pseudonym).

[127] See, e.g., Colorado Department of Corrections, Administrative Regulation 600-02 (stating at ¶ IV(A)(4) that membership in a “security threat group” is one of five factors that “may be considered in initiating placement in administrative segregation”).

[128] Human Rights Watch interview with Ethan W., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 28, 2004 (pseudonym).

[129] See, e.g., “Out of Sight: Supermaximum Security Confinement in the United States,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 12, no. 1(G), February 2000; “Red Onion State Prison: Supermaximum Security Confinement in Virginia,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 11, no. 1(g), May 1999; Human Rights Watch, Cold Storage: Supermaximum Security Confinement in Indiana, 1997; Amnesty International “Conditions in H-Unit, Oklahoma State Penitentiary”, May 1994; Amnesty International, “Rights For All”, October 1998, chapter 4, p 73-78; Amnesty International, “Cruel and inhuman treatment in Virginia supermaximum security prisons,” May 2001; Amnesty International, “Amnesty International condemns housing minors in Wisconsin supermax prison”, July 2001.

[130] For adults, U.S. courts have questioned arbitrary placement into isolation, the length of isolation time imposed, and conditions in the isolation cell. See Juveniles in Adult Prisons and Jails, p. 25 (citing Harris v. Maloughney, 827 F. Supp. 1488 (D. Mont. 1993); McCray v. Burrell, 516 F.2d 357 (4th Cir. 1975); Lareau v. MacDougal, 473 F.2d 974 (2d Cir. 1972)).

[131] Human Rights Committee, General Comment 20, Article 7 (Forty-fourth session, 1992), Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, U.N. Doc. HRI\GEN\1\Rev.1 at 30 (1994), para. 6.

[132] European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), "Second General Report on the CPT's Activities," Strasbourg, France, April 1992, p. 15.

[133] Human Rights Watch interview with Troy L., Cummins Unit, Grady, Arkansas, June 23, 2004 (pseudonym).

[134] Ibid.

[135] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Warren P., Marion Correctional Institute, Lowell, Florida, March 2, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[136] “Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain,” p. 499 (citing Creasie Hairston, “Family Ties during Imprisonment: Important to Whom and for What?” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, vol. 18, (1991), p. 87).

[137] “Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain,” p. 499 (citing Judith Herman, “Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolonged and Repeated Trauma,” Journal of Traumatic Stress, vol. 5 (1992), p. 377).

[138] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Addison R., Oaks Correctional Facility, Eastlake, Michigan, March 20, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[139] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Jeffrey B., Somerset Prison, Somerset, Pennsylvania, March 10, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[140] Letter to Human Rights Watch from John E., State Correctional Institution, Dallas, Pennsylvania, March 15, 2004 (pseudonym).

[141] Colorado Department of Corrections, “Offender Visiting Program,” available online at: www.doc.state.co.us/visitors/visitors.htm, accessed on October 24, 2004.

[142] Human Rights Watch interview with Ethan W., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 28, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[143] See, e.g., elsewhere in this report, Human Rights Watch interview with Luke J., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 27, 2004 (pseudonym); and with Alexis V., Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, Mitchellville, Iowa, April 2004 (pseudonym).

[144] “Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain,” p. 499 (citing R.J. Sapsford, “Life Sentence Prisoners: Psychological Changes During Sentence,” British Journal of  Criminology vol. 18, no. 128 (1978)).

[145] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Brandon S, Ionia Maximum Facility, Ionia, Michigan, March 22, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[146] Lindsay M. Hayes, Prison Suicide: An Overview and Guide to Prevention (National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, June 1995) available online at: http://www.nicic.org/pubs/1995/012475.pdf, accessed on September 14, 2005.

[147] Human Rights Watch interview with Luke J., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 27, 2004 (pseudonym).

[148] Human Rights Watch interview with Richard I., East Arkansas Regional Unit, Brickeys, Arkansas, June 21, 2004 (pseudonym).

[149] Human Rights Watch interview with Ethan W., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 28, 2004 (pseudonym).

[150] Juveniles in Adult Prisons and Jails, p. 43.

[151] Ibid., p. 36 (emphasis in original).

[152] Human Rights Watch interview with Richard I., East Arkansas Regional Unit, Brickeys, Arkansas, June 21, 2004 (pseudonym).

[153] Ibid.

[154] Human Rights Watch interview with Clifford S., Maximum Security Unit, Tucker, Arkansas, June 24, 2004 (pseudonym).

[155] Human Rights Watch interview with Scott J., Centennial Correctional Facility, Cañon City, Colorado, June 27, 2004 (pseudonym). Scott explained that he was jailed with adults for three or four days, after which he was transferred to a juvenile detention center in Colorado’s Jefferson County.

[156] American Correctional Association (ACA), Public Correctional Policy on Youthful Offenders Transferred to Adult Criminal Jurisdiction, Delegate Assembly, Congress of Correction, Nashville, Tennessee, August 21, 1996 (unanimously ratified), available online at: http://www.aca.org/pastpresentfuture/winter_2004_policiespage1.asp, accessed on September 14, 2005.

[157] See Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), 1974. While the ACA references the JJDPA’s requirements in its standards, the JJDPA does not apply to youth in adult facilities who are being prosecuted as adults in state court.

[158] See Convention on the Rights of the Child, G.A. Res. 44/25, U.N. Doc. A/RES/44/25, (entered into force September 2, 1990), Article 37b, (stating “every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so.”). Article 13.4 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (the “Beijing Rules”), G.A. Res. 40/33, Annex, 40 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No 53) at 207, U.N. Doc. A/40/53 (1985) and Article 26 of the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (the “UN Rules”), G.A. Res. 45/113, Annex, 45 U.N. GAOR Supp. (no. 49A) at 205, U.N. Doc. A/45/49 (1990) (requiring separation of children from adults in distinct institutions or in separate parts of a single institution).

[159] Human Rights Watch interview with Clifford S., Maximum Security Unit, Tucker, Arkansas, June 22, 2004 (pseudonym).

[160] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Stacey T., Chester, Pen nsylvania, September 8, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[161] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Warren P., Marion Correctional Institute, Lowell, Florida, March 2, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[162] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Gerard C., Tucker, Arkansas, March 15, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[163] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Linda Shephard, Programs Officer, Arkansas Department of Corrections, July 18, 2005.

[164] See The Higher Education Act, Title VIII, Sec. D, “Grants to States for Workforce and Community Transition Training for Incarcerated Youth”.

[165] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Cleveland B., Springville, Alabama, March 29, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[166] Human Rights Watch interview with Joe L., Limon Correctional Facility, Limon, Colorado, May 28, 2004 (pseudonym).

[167] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Darby B., Ionia Maximum Facility, Ionia, Michigan, March 1, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[168] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Holman C., Springville, Alabama, March 3, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[169] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Cindy J., Wetumpka, Alabama, March 17, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[170] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Angela B., McCloud, Oklahoma, August 13, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[171] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Dinah Tyler, spokeswoman, Arkansas Department of Corrections, October 2004; Human Rights Watch interview with treatment director at Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, Mitchellville, Iowa, April 5, 2004; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Susan McNaughton, press secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, October 2004; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Margot Bach, public information officer, California Department of Corrections, November 3, 2004.

[172] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Dinah Tyler, Arkansas Department of Corrections Public Information, October 2004.

[173] Human Rights Watch interview with treatment director at Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, Mitchellville, Iowa, April 2004.

[174] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Susan McNaughton, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Press Secretary, October 2004.

[175] Ibid.

[176] Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, “Teaching Inmates to Work,” March 2005, available online at: http://www.cor.state.pa.us/stats/lib/stats/ci.pdf, accessed on April 1, 2005.

[177] “Amenability Determination,” Southern Reception Center and Clinic, December 17, 1991 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[178] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Darryl T., California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi, California, March 20, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[179] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Margot Bach, Public Information Officer, California Department of Corrections, November 3, 2004.

[180] U.N. Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, G.A. Res. 45/113, annex, 45 U.N. GAPR Supp. (no. 49A) at 205, U.N. Doc. A/45/49, (1990), para. 12 (stating “children should be guaranteed the benefit of meaningful activities and programs which would serve to promote and sustain their health and self-respect, to foster their sense of responsibility and encourage those attitudes and skills that will assist them in developing their potential as members of society”).

[181] U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, Adopted August 30, 1955, by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, U.N. Doc. A/CONF/611, annex I, E.S.C. res. 663C, 24 U.N. ESCOR Supp. (no. 1) at 11, U.N. Doc. E/3048 (1957), amended E.S.C. res. 2076, 62 U.N. ESCOR Supp. (no. 1) at 35, U.N. Doc. E/5988 (1977), art. 77(1) and 78.

[182] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Trey J., Limon Correctional Facility, Limon, Colorado, March 1, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch). Human Rights Watch also interviewed Trey in person on May 28, 2004 at Limon Correctional Facility, Limon, Colorado.

[183] Ibid.

[184] Statistics on sexual violence in U.S. prisons reveal a serious problem with all kinds of violence, especially since sexual violence is so severely underreported. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that there were 3.15 allegations of sexual violence per every 1,000 inmates in 2004. See Allen J. Beck and Timothy A. Hughes, Sexual Violence Reported by Correctional Authorities, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, July 2005, available online at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov, accessed on August 1, 2005.

[185] Martin Forst et al., “Youth in Prisons and Training Schools: Perceptions and Consequences of the Treatment-Custody Dichotomy,” Juvenile & Family Court, vol. 4 (1989), p. 9. See also Jason Ziedenberg & Vincent Schiraldi, “The Risks Juveniles Face When They Are Incarcerated with Adults” (Justice Policy Institute, July 1997), available online at: http://www.cjcj.org/jpi/risks.html, accessed on April 15, 2005.

[186] See ICCPR, art. 7; Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 37.

[187] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Michael S., Kinross Correctional Facility, Kincheloe, Michigan, March 22, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[188] Human Rights Watch interview with Joe L., Limon Correctional Facility, Limon, Colorado, May 28, 2004 (pseudonym).

[189] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Javier M., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, March 8, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[190] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Gregory C., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, March 13, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[191] Human Rights Watch interview with Jackson W., East Arkansas Regional Unit, Brickeys, Arkansas, June 21, 2004 (pseudonym).

[192] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Andrew H., Frackville, Pennsylvania, February 17, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[193] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Patricia L., Central California Women’s Facility State Prison, Chowchilla, California, July 14, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[194] Human Rights Watch interview with Richard I., East Arkansas Regional Unit, Brickeys, Arkansas, June 21, 2004 (pseudonym).

[195] Ibid.

[196] See Amnesty International, “Not Part of My Sentence, Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody,” March 1999; “Nowhere to Hide: Retaliation Against Women in Michigan State Prisons,” A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 10 no. 2(G), September 1998; and Human Rights Watch, All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996).

[197] See Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, Rule 53 (female prisoners should be attended and supervised only by female officers; male staff such as doctors and teachers may provide professional services in female facilities, but should always be accompanied by female officers); Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention, Principle 5(2) (special measures which are designed solely to protect the rights and special status of women are not considered discriminatory).

[198] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Carolyn K., Central California Women’s Facility State Prison, Chowchilla, California, April 18, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[199] Human Rights Watch interview with Cheryl J., McPherson Unit, Newport, Arkansas, June 24, 2004 (pseudonym).

[200] Ibid.

[201] Ibid.

[202] Human Rights Watch interview with Charles L., Varner Unit, Arkansas, June 22, 2004 (pseudonym).

[203] Human Rights Watch, No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons, (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 2001), p. 70.

[204] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Brian B., Albion, Pennsylvania, August 28, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[205] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Warren P., Marion Correction Institute, Lowell, Florida, March 2, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[206] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Tyler Y., Sterling, Colorado, March 16, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[207] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Eric R., Saginaw Correctional Facility, Freeland, Michigan, March 18, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[208] Human Rights Watch interview with Luke J., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 27, 2004 (pseudonym).

[209] Human Rights Watch interview with Trent H., Cummins Unit, Grady, Arkansas, June 22, 2004 (pseudonym).

[210] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Addison R., Oaks Correctional Facility, East Lake, Michigan, March 20, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[211] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Jeffrey W., David Wade Correctional Center, Homer, Louisiana, April 26, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[212] See, e.g., ACA, Protective Custody (1982); Lockwood, Prison Sexual Violence (1980); Human Rights Watch, No Escape (2001), p. 136 (cataloging a number of empirical studies documenting the incidence and nature of sexual violence in prison).

[213] Human Rights Watch, No Escape (2001), p. 143.

[214] Ibid., p. 144-6.

[215] See, e.g., Michele D. Buisch, “Budget Cuts Present Challenge to Many State Correctional Agencies,” Corrections Today, December 2003; Erin M. Samolis, “Divergent Clockwork Oranges: The Juvenile Justice Systems of the United States and Great Britain,” University of Chicago Law School Roundtable, vol. 8 (2001), p. 189; Barry C. Feld, “Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems' Responses to Youth Violence,” Crime and Justice, vol. 24, (1998), p. 189; “Psychology and the Limits to Prison Pain,” p.499.

[216] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Cindy J., Wetumpka, Alabama, March 18, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[217] Human Rights Watch interview with Samantha L, Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, Mitchellville, Iowa, April 2004 (pseudonym).

[218] Human Rights Watch interview with Charles L, Varner Unit, Arkansas, June 22, 2004 (pseudonym).

[219] Human Rights Watch interview with Nelson H., Buena Vista Correctional Facility, Buena Vista, Colorado, July 28, 2004 (pseudonym).

[220] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Troy L., Grady, Arkansas, undated, received July 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[221] Human Rights Watch interview with Thomas M.

[222] Letter to Human Rights Watch from Bradley W., Norfolk, Massachusetts, September 12, 2004 (pseudonym) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[223] All details of Timothy’s childhood abuse were obtained in a May 2005 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Marty Marsh, Timothy’s psychologist in the Iowa Department of Corrections. Human Rights Watch also interviewed Timothy at Anamosa State Penitentiary, Anamosa, Iowa, on April 6, 2004 (pseudonym). In addition, we obtained Timothy’s permission to publish his story, per a letter dated August 29, 2005.

[224] Ibid.

[225] Ibid.

[226] Ibid.


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