My Drawing One class is working on a response to letters we received from teenagers who are presently serving life sentences in prison. Some of these persons are guilty of a violent crime, some were hit with Califronia's 3 strikes law and some may have been imprisoned unjustly. All were under 19 at the time of the crimes commited.
We asked ourselves if life in prison with little chance of parole was the Christlike response to these young people's situations.... most of those incarcerated come from abusive, poor, and uneducated families. Many had poor representation. Most are children of color.
Perhaps the crime started way back when these teenagers were little- when we as a society failed to reach out to help them grow in health, education and welfare.
Is imprisoning youth for life the answer to a more peaceful society? Or is the making of a peaceful society to be had in a more constructive way? We are making art postcards to send to these youth to let them know that they are not forgotten as they serve their time in prison. Can you think of other artistic responses to the problem of harsh sentencing of youth?
LAWRENCE SAID THIS, NOT BOB
ReplyDeleteImprisoning youth for life is not the more peaceful answer for society because the amount of money we spend to keep those kids in prison for their entire life, could have been spent to teach them a valuable eduaction so they themselves could benefit society one day, not rot in a cell. The reasons these kids are incarcerated in the first place was probably that they grew up in an unfortunate neighborhood and the only father figure they had to look up to were the gangs. So right out of the gate these kids were brought up to do violent things and reject society.