PETITION SEEKING TO END LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE SENTENCES FOR MICH. CHILDREN REACHES 900 SIGNATURES

We are happy to announce we have reached more than 900 signatures for our Change.org petition supporting passage of House Bills 5941-5944 and Senate Bills 848-851 into law.

If passed, the set of bills would abolish life without parole (LWOP) sentences for justice-impacted Michigan children. They would also make Michigan the thirty-fifth state in the nation to end the inhumane practice or have no one serving the sentence who was convicted during their childhood.

The bills recognize the concept of redemption and allow justice-impacted children to receive term-of-year sentences that provide them meaningful, realistic, and achievable release consideration later in their adult lives based on demonstrated change and rehabilitation.

Children would still be held fully accountable for their actions, however, they would not be condemned to die in prison for a tragic mistake they made when they were still mentally and emotionally underdeveloped.

Each time a person signs the petition the platform sends their respective Michigan State Representative and Senator an email expressing support for passage of House Bills 5941-5944 and Senate Bills 848-851. Thus, 1,800 emails have been sent to members of both chambers of the legislature regarding this campaign so far (i.e., 900 to Senators and 900 to Representatives).

The petition can be accessed at http://Bit.ly/END-MI-JLWOP

Please share the petition link widely in your social media network and ask others to do the same. If we can all get 10 new people to sign the petition who haven't already done so we can quickly reach 9,000 signatures.

You can also help support passage of Senate Bills 848-851 and House Bills 5941-5944 by downloading and sharing the 8.5" x 11" End LWOP Sentences for Children in Michigan poster in your network to help.

You can share the digital version of the poster on your social media pages or display a physical version at social justice events, libraries, community centers, workplaces, businesses, on college campuses, in faith communities, homes, and any other places where people gather.

The poster is available for download free in JPEG and PDF formats at http://Bit.ly/END-MI-JLWOP-POSTER

Help replace the cruel throw away policy of the past that treats children as problems and not people with a forward-thinking policy that recognizes human dignity. #EndJLWOP

Efrén Paredes, Jr.
Founder
Support Michigan Prison Reform
http://fb.com/groups/MichPR
MiPrisonReform@gmail.com

Michigan Poor People's Campaign, Co-Chair
Presente.org, Co-Founder
Michigan Collaborative to End Mass
Incarceration (MI-CEMI), Member

"To deny juveniles, as a matter of law, any hope that they may one day escape the moral cesspool that is prison, is to condemn them to a lifetime of extreme suffering that is ended only by their deaths. ... A sentence of death by incarceration extinguishes the juvenile's life in a free society, condemning him to a mere existence in the often brutal netherworld of prison. A life relegated to prison, where emotional immaturity is the norm, effectively extinguishes the juvenile's potential to attain 'a mature understanding of his own humanity.'"
--Robert Johnson, Ph.D. & Sonia Tabriz, "Death by Incarceration as a Cruel and Unusual Punishment When Applied to Juveniles," 9 RRGC 241, 251 (2009)