Blade Reed - Fighting for Humane Treatment

BLADE REED
JUVENILE DEFENDANT




STEVE SYDEBOTHAM
ADVOCATE OF BLADE REED

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.

This petition is created in support of age and developmentally appropriate humane treatment of 14 year old, Blade Reed, currently housed in the adult maximum security prison, Wabash Correctional Facility, (Carlisle) Indiana.Last December, after pleaing guilty to robbery resulting in severe bodily injury, Blade was sentenced, as an adult, to serve 30 years with violent offenders and sexual predators. It is important to note that Blade is the youngest inmate at Wabash, also almost immediately after the crime, Blade accepted responsibility and displayed extreme remorse for his actions on that fateful day and has continued to do so, ever since. As fellow United States citizens, it has come to our attention that Blade Reed has been issued to serve an entire year in disciplinary solitary confinement after having been involved in three known altercations in the adult prison of which this 14 year old child has been placed. To our knowledge, this means Blade will be expected to survive being locked in solitary confinement with no other human interaction inside a small cell for 23 hours every day for one whole year or more. Under Indiana law, each inmate forced into disciplinary solitary confinement, is released for only one hour per day of which during that hour he will need to shower and minimally exercise. It is unclear, at this point, the conditions of this child's education. Also,there is no guarantee that this one hour will be granted, each day, as a provision exists its implimentation is dependant upon the security status of the overall facility.Exasperating this child's plight is the liklihood this child suffers from undiagnosed mental disabilities. After reviewing court documentation from the court appointed psychologist's evaluation of Blade and from further consultation, it is expert opinion that Blade Reed may suffer from "Asperger's Syndrome (a form or autism) and/or Bipolar Disorder" and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was the court appointed psychologist's opinion and testimony to the court, Blade Reed "had the social skills of a 10 year old", and that "97% of kids his age, were more socially adept then he was". The psychologist also testified  "if Blade develops in an adult center (prison) he will be negatively influenced by other (older) inmates". During his evaluation it was discovered Blade had been severely abused by his biological parents through age 6 and also suffers from ADHD, but had been taken off his medications.In addition, Blade continues to suffer from depression and anger issues resulting from the traumatic (sexual, physical and mental) abuse he endured throughout his entire formative years by the ones who were responsible for shaping the character of this young child.This petition hopes to achieve these goals:1) To have Blade Reed professionally evaluated and treated for possible undiagnosed mental disablilities,2) To re-examine and overturn the assignment of one year in disciplinary solitary confinement  for a replacement of a more humane discipline for Blade Reed ,3) To re-assign Blade Reed into an age and developmentally appropriate program, whereas, he would receive much needed psychological care, education and life skills training through counseling.These changes of his living conditions are crucial for him to be capable of becoming the sane, emotionally stable, and productive member of society he will need to be upon his future release. The adult system is geared towards punishment, the juvenile system fosters rehabilitation. Please, will you help this American child not to be forgotten and left in cruel and unusual conditions?We believe in our US Constitution and in our children...our future.

Thank You for your time and consideration of this matter

Breaking News - LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE CHILDREN IN AMERICA

In America, the federal government and 44 states impose LWOP for children, but only 39, in fact, use it. These sentencing policies for children are barbaric. ....The rush to try more and more children as adults began in the 1980s when the country was gripped by hysteria about an adolescent crime wave that never materialized. Joe Sullivan, the petitioner in Sullivan v. Florida, was sentenced to life without parole in 1989 — when he was just 13 — after a questionable sexual battery conviction. His two older accomplices testified against the younger, mentally impaired boy. The case of Terrance Graham a learning disabled child — born to crack-addicted parents — Mr. Graham was on probation in connection with a burglary committed when he was 16 when he participated in a home invasion. He, too, had older accomplices. He was never convicted of the actual crime but was given life without parole for violating the conditions of his probation. In one of the most shocking cases of the courtroom on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.
This is a case where literally thousands of kids lives were tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money. Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.
Troubled children in need of self honest assistence and support that went unnoticed. It is insupportable to conclude, as the courts did, that children who committed crimes when they are so young were beyond rehabilitation. The laws under which they were convicted violate basic human rights standards as well as violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
There is widespread agreement among child development researchers that young people who commit crimes are very likely to reform their behavior and have a great chance of rehabilitation. How can we hold these children accountable when we ourselves are not accountable for what we have accepted and allowed to exist within this world. Stand Up and face the shit that is going on within and as our world. Much change is necessary that requires self direction and self responsibility within self forgiveness and self honesty!
Support an Equal Money System for All from Birth till Death as a Solution- to reduce behaviours related to our current broken money system.
In America, the federal government and 44 states impose LWOP for children, but only 39, in fact, use it. Here's the Breakdown:
-- Indiana allows it from age 16; -- permitting it from age 15 are Louisiana and Washington; -- from age 14 are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, and Virginia; -- from age 13 are Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Wyoming; -- from age 12 are Missouri and Montana; -- from age 10 are South Dakota and Wisconsin; -- Nevada allows it from age 8; and -- 13 states permit it at any age, including Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. For News Sources: see description of video and Interactive State map link to see your locaton.
Join us in Discussion for Solutions
www.desteni.co.za
Background Music: A Piano, by Fidelis Spies, Desteni Chill
News Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/whenkidsgetlife/etc/map.html - Interactive map
http://www.endjlwop.org/the-issue/
http://current.com/news/89806725_judge-took-2-6-million-in-payoffs-to-put-kid...

When I Die, Please Send Me Home: A Child's Life Without Parole

America is the only country on earth that allows juvenile offenders to be sentenced to Life Without Parole. We have more than 2,500 child lifers - 109 for non-homicide crimes - in 38 states. Some children are simply broken, sociopaths who need to be kept away from society forever. And there are the miscarriages of justice, the kid forced to participate in the horror shows that get people killed, or the kid simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are white and black, girls and boys, rich and poor, from the North as well as the South. They are in New Hampshire and Colorado, Florida and Texas. They are very often in California. This documentary is NOT a piece of hand-wringing advocacy. NOT the "Innocence Project". We are not on a mission to spring the innocent. Both the film and the episodic insist on remaining in the realm of discomfort. We are proposing an uncompromising look at what it is to lock up a kid for life, both the "deserving" and the "undeserving", what that means for the kids, for the adults (and the elderly) who have lived behind bars since childhood. And what it says about us as a nation and a culture that we still wield this form of punishment on the unformed. We will also examine the life of the child behind bars, and be present at that moment when the reality of his existence comes crashing down around him: the realization that this is it. The hopes and dreams are gone. Replaced by confinement. Never to marry, never to date. Never to bear children or raise them. (Remarkable and terrifying fact: many juvenile lifers, upon entering prison, are forced to spend their first years - sometimes as many as a decade - in solitary confinement. Not out of punishment but to ready them to survive the prison's general population. Only when they are hardened are they sent out into the yards.) Also, what gets a child so broken that he is able to put a gun to the back of a man's head and pull the trigger? What of his biology, what of his upbringing? Not to say the killers among them are unjailable or unpunishable, but when a kid under 17 goes away forever, we are, for better or worse, extinguishing a flame. And it is a slow execution. So we are interested in locating, if it is findable, the moment of conception of the mistake, or the pathology. We will follow the lives of some of these kids inside ... and the families -- of the victims and the perpetrators both -- on the outside. Are there alternatives for kids like these? Or do we simply throw them in the box and dispose of them?

 

Joshuarofe@yahoo.com

 

 achildslifewithoutparole.com

16 yr old got 90 years/A MUST READ/HELP

if anyone "out there" can be of any help, please contact him at his address listed.
 
 





* http://www.whoopassforjustice.org
* http://justicewinds.blogspot.com
* http://knightsshadows.blogspot.com/

Sara Kruzan

If you don't know Sara's story please read below:


She was raised in Riverside by her abusive, drug-addicted mother. Sara met her father only three times in her life because he was in prison.


Since the age of 9, Sara suffered from severe depression for which she was hospitalized several times. At the age of 11, she met a 31-year-old man named G.G. who molested her and began grooming her to become a prostitute. At age 13, she began working as a child prostitute for G.G. and was repeatedly molested by him. At age 16, Sara was convicted of killing him. She was sentenced to prison for the rest of her life despite her background and a finding by the California Youth Authority that she was amendable to treatment offered in the juvenile system. This year after years of work by many parties Sara's sentence was commuted by Governor Schwarzenegger from Life in prison without the possibility of parole to 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole....and so our fight continues until Sara is served the justice and freedom that has eluded her throughout her entire life.

---

"And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone."
- Mary H. Jones


Soldiers As Slaves
By Jeff Turner (@respres)


It started as disgust. But as time passed and evidence mounted, the pain has worked it's way deeper into my soul. There is no way to fully describe the anguish that comes form watching, listening, or reading reports of the atrocities committed against our world's innocents. Young children are the targets of unthinkable cruelty. They're easier to manipulate, brainwash and abuse. And while the attacks are bad enough, the lingering effects of their abuse are overwhelming. These children will never be the same again. They are forever scarred. Our world is forever scarred

 

Kim Deanna - Advocate for Sara Kruzan - Best Friend
 http://www.freesarakruzan.org
 http://www.twitter.com/freesarakruzan
http://irishgreeneyesbodysnatchers.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html

A.A.A Wisconsin Chapter

The Juvenile Justice in the United States is certainly in dire need of America's undivided focus and attention, for far too many children are being led into the adult court system and discarded into the adult prison system unnecessarily. So I commend and applaud your efforts to bring a degree of responsibility to the juvenile justice Laws. Though I think it's important that America's focus and attention also include the teenagers that were waived and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in the adult prison system 15/16/17/years ago. I think Justice for these Juvenile offenders would include Liz Ryan, the Director for the campaign for youth justice called the 2nd look Legislation. '2nd Look' means youth serving long sentences get their sentences reviewed at some point in their incarceration. Would you consider 2nd look Legislation?3

A.A.A. Colt Lundy and Paul Gingerich -

What a lame-brained, stupid scheme: kill Colt's stepdad Philip Danner and then go to Arizona to sell T-shirts to "drug people." These kids had been planning it for weeks on the school playground, according to police, as only kids could do.

Yesterday the youngest of the two kids Indiana authorities tried as adults, 12-year-old Paul Gingerich, received the same sentence as Colt Lundy, the 15-year-old trigger-"man" and originator of the scheme: 25 years in prison.

A third boy who had been drawn into this idiocy but who had not participated in the actual shooting is being dealt with as a juvenile.

It's hard to sort out who is the most lame-brained in this whole affair: the kids who, being kids, are still developing and are working with brains incapable of grasping the depth and consequences of their stupidity, or all of the adults involved—the police, prosecutor, judge, parents, school officials, etc.—who should know better. Yet this is a bad outcome, not only for these boys and their families, but for society.

I only learned about this case yesterday when Wolfgang posted a link to the story originating from a TV station in my old hometown of South Bend, Indiana, so I don't know enough yet to be pointing the finger of blame in any particular directions. However, I do believe there will come a day when we will recognize that such tragedies are the inevitable result of conditioning by the combined effects on children of violent entertainments, mind-numbing and socially retarding schooling, and the breakdown of supportive family structures.

I'm ruing the fact, though, that I have been unaware of this case until now because I might otherwise have been able to help in a more timely way. I still know people in Indiana who might have made a difference (but still can).

I can imagine that the mothers of these boys are crying their eyes out right now in fear and horror of what their children's futures may hold—but we needn't go there now because it's not a hopeful picture. Yet the fact of the matter is that these boys are still children who have not yet been damaged by the system and turned into the brutal criminals they might become by ages 37 and 40 if they were to serve out their full prison terms.

There is still hope, as evidenced by recent Supreme Court rulings and changes in state laws (in surprising places) regarding the prosecution of children.

Maybe change will even come to Indiana. People everywhere are awakening. -
http://wandervogeldiary.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/lame-brained/