Locked Away PDF
Locked Away PDF
Locked Away PDF
LOCKED
AWAY
FOR
Cedric Rue with his mother around
LIFE
the time he killed Michael Decker
14 UPFRONT • UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM
WATCH A VIDEO Opinion: Abolish Life Without Parole
at UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM
WA
MT MI ME
ND
MN VT
OR NH MA
ID
SD WI NY
WY RI
IA PA NJ CT
NE
NV OH DE
UT IL IN
CO WV VA MD
CA KS MO KY
DC
NC
TN
AZ OK
NM AR SC
MS AL GA
AK TX LA LIFE-WITHOUT-PAROLE
SENTENCES
FL FOR JUVENILES
HI ALLOWED
Alaska and Hawaii are not drawn to scale BANNED
or placed in their proper geographic positions. SOURCE: The Sentencing Project
KEY DATES
IN JUVENILE JUSTICE
1899 1980s
Juvenile Court Rise in Juvenile Crime
16 UPFRONT • UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM
taken away from me and [his family].
Intellectually, I could say they should
be given an opportunity to have parole.
Emotionally, it’s hard to tell.”
‘Capacity to Change’
Though Rue is still hoping for a second
chance, others have already benefited
from the changes in law. Since 2012, the
number of people serving life without
parole for crimes committed as juveniles
has declined by almost 50 percent. Close
to 800 people given these sentences
have returned home from prison.
Marshan Allen is one of them.
Research shows He was sentenced to mandatory life
that adolescents’ without parole in 1996. He was 15 at
brains aren’t fully the time, and his sentence related to
developed, so teens his involvement in a gang shooting in
don’t have the same
Chicago. While in custody, Allen began
ability to weigh risk.
trying to turn his life around. He took
law classes and received a law certificate
Instead, she says, we should allow a inmates and is part of a peer in 2001. He filed several
parole board to make a judgment on how mentorship program. ‘No one is appeals for resentencing,
someone has matured when that time “I used to feel like I who they but each one was rejected.
comes. During a parole hearing, inmates belonged in here. Now I don’t were when Then in 2014, he got a
who’ve already served a certain amount feel that way anymore,” Rue
they were break. Illinois began allowing
of time in prison have a chance to argue says. “I just want the chance inmates who’d been given
that they’re ready for an early release. to get out to try and prove
a teenager.’ mandatory life-without-parole
“It makes more sense that we consider that we’re not the same. That we were sentences as juveniles the opportunity
a person’s growth on the back end,” she just stupid kids.” to appeal. Allen typed up a petition and
says, “as opposed to trying to predict Melissa Nottingham was once filed it in court right away. Two years
which 16- and 17-year-olds will make engaged to Decker, the man Rue shot. later, after nearly 25 years behind bars,
that growth.” At the time of the sentence, she says he was allowed to walk free.
Rue has been transferred between she thought it was fair. She called it Now, Allen advocates for criminal
multiple prisons and spent time in “a cruel sentence on a cruel crime.” justice reform as the policy director of
solitary confinement. He says he’s But she has since softened her position. the nonprofit Restore Justice. He says
trying to show that he has changed. “I struggle with the idea that they he’s living proof that people shouldn’t
While in custody, he received his G.E.D. don’t have the opportunity for parole, be judged by “their worst mistakes.”
He’s also taken rehabilitation classes, because of the fact that your mind “Children especially have the
such as a victim’s impact class and a isn’t developed at 16,” she says. “On greatest capacity to change,” Allen says.
class called Courage for a Change. He’s the flip side, I think about how Mike “No one is who they were when they
also teaching a painting class to other brought a lot of joy and what was were a teenager.” •
*the equivalent of a high school diploma
New federal “tough on The Supreme Court The Supreme Court bans Some states are moving
crime” laws push states eliminates the death penalty mandatory life without parole away from a tough-on-
to adopt harsher sentences for juvenile offenders, sentences for juveniles. A crime approach to juvenile
for serious offenders. One saying it violates the 8th second case four years later offenders, instead stressing
result is many more juveniles Amendment ban on “cruel extends this protection to treatment, education, and
being tried as adults. and unusual punishments.” those already sentenced. rehabilitation.