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New Mexico, in its recent legislative session considered a ‘Second Chance’ bill (Senate Bill 43) that would’ve guaranteed violent youth offenders sentenced as adults a parole hearing after 15 years of incarceration. It wouldn’t have offered any guarantees as to the out come of those hearings, but nevertheless it was legislation that would have had a monumental impact on the decision of so many youth offenders who are confronted with seemingly impossible prison sentences as they make decisions on the kinds of lives to pursue on the inside.
Some celebrated this legislature outcome, while others laminated of political process that seems to depend more on political self preservation than common-sense or evidence-based leadership. This is an issue that I have closely watched for years, as I previously wrote in the The Myth of the SuperPredator, last year, and it’s one I feel passionate about because I live with the myth violent youth offenders grow into, and I see the grave injustice taking place, not only in their lives, and but in the lives of those who love and support them.
In fact, last year I read a compelling essay in Inside times that reached into my soul and demanded my undivided attention. I discovered (Latasha) Brown, a woman who had served over 18 years for a murder she committed when she was 15.
LaTasha Brown Source: Unsolvedmysteries.com
I can’t entirely explain the reasons behind my decision to reach out to this woman. Yes, I admired her writing; and, yes, I felt compelled to peel back the outer shell of her criminal charges to the person beneath, because in doing so I believed I would find the necessary insight to better understand the predicament of so many youth offenders languishing under the strain of senseless sentences that improve the lives of no one.
But there was something more, a seniority to her plea — not for pity, or forgiveness, or anything else of the sort — she was simply asking the world to acknowledge her plight, the plight of more than 107,000 violent youth offenders across this nation sentenced to various forms of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).
I read the articles published about her case, and could not find redeeming presented about her or the case. A young woman was killed, her infant was kidnapped, and Tasha was responsible. As a father I can’t even imagine the shock and pain that must have been felt from the seemingly senseless act of brutal disregard for human life.
If we look at the facts of this case as presented by the state against Tasha we see a murder and a kidnapping, plain and simple. There was no dressing this up as something other than it was, but what struck me as unfortunate is that nobody seemed interested in understanding the contradicting factors that undoubtedly led up to this tragedy. And if we’re ever to understand crime, then we have to step into the murky unknown of the contributing factors and begin to ask the kinds of questions that most prosecutors, politicians, and judges prefer to ignore.
It comes down to simple question really, why? If we’re not brave enough to ask this question, then unfortunately we will never possess what we need to erase these tragedies from our future. And shouldn’t this be our goal?
So, in my letters I asked Tasha to tell me who she was prior to the crime that forever marked the lives of so many, including her own, and what she wrote back to me was a depiction of life and its often ugly and uncensored form. And I must warn my readers that the experiences are gripping and graphic to the imagination.
I asked who she was prior to this, and her response was as follows:
“My earliest childhood memories are marred by screams, sirens, substance abuse, pain, fear, molestation, rape and instability. I can not mix past feelings with the present feelings, but I do remember the exact moment I developed the false belief system that would lead me here; I was 8 years old. It was the morning after I was raped for the first time. As I bathed in an attempt to erase the violation, I told myself that only person that would protect me was myself.
As a result of my unprocessed abuse and trauma I suffered impaired social, emotional and academic functioning. My father (whom physically abused my mother) was addicted to cocaine and alcohol. The last beating occurred in 1989 and left my mother in a wheel chair, and in a mental institution. I spent some time living in a motel room with an older brother and his family.
To cope with my trauma I started drinking at about 12 [years old]. That is also the age I met a 17 year old boy. I had been sexually violated beginning at about age 5, so I had internalized life sex as my only value. I thought that giving this boy my sex would earn what I so desperately needed: love.
By age fourteen, I was living life on the verge of suicide. I was suffering mental, moral and emotional decay. I had few people I could talk to, so became crusted over and withdrawn.
My relationship with the seventeen year old boy was unhealthy, he cheated on me frequently.
To make a long story short I went out with an other guy to make him jealous, only I ended up getting raped. The next few days would change my life. It wasn’t by battered inside or outside that caused me to go to the hospital; it was my cousin. She told me that I could have contracted an S.T.D and should get checked out. I did. I was a minor. The cops were called. I also took a pregnancy test — which came back positive.
In all honestly, I did not know who had gotten me pregnant, but I determined to tell my boyfriend it was his and have a happily ever after… not so.
The next in a serious of a testastrophy was me holding the loss of by pregnancy in my hand. The sudden, unexpected loss of the pregnancy was too much for me to process. My body continued to show indications of pregnancy, and I continued to believe and behave as if I were. Shortly after a visit to the hospital I was confronted with my reality; I was no longer pregnant. It was during this time that I murdered my love rival (who had just had a baby by my boyfriend) !and I abducted her infant.”
I have felt my way through her arduous accounts numerous times and every time I read it I can’t help but feel anger and fear and — disappointment. Horrible outcomes appear to be born from other horrible events, there’s no escaping them.
The anger I felt was in knowing that society was disinterested in her plight and ongoing trauma. The fear was felt when I dared to imagine the last few moments of life for the young mother who lost her life and didn’t get to see her child grow — or for the child who would never know its mother. Finally, there was the child’s father and the family who were inundated with more pain than anyone should have to endure. But we must, if we ever intend to get beyond the hate and the impulses of vengeance to the plane of forgiveness — we must.
Tasha later wrote:
“While it is painfully difficult to share all of this, I must delve deeply into it in order to transcend it. I know that there have been devastating ramifications because of my crime against humanity. Those consequences are far reaching and unintended yet they cannot be undone.”
Tasha’s sincerity after the fact will never lessen what she has done. Yet, we seem to sentence people for crimes as though we were waiting for them to do just that — undo what they’ve done.
Who amongst us have not suffered heart ships? Most of us have traumas and wounds and inflictions that we carry through life like luggage. Some of us seek healing, and in doing so recognize the valiant effort it requires. Others prefer to lock their suitcases in mental compartments and closets. But regardless of the path we choose we’re forever compromised, in that, we can’t undo what’s been done.
“I have been holding myself emotionally accountable, as well as socially. I have been active in self-help groups [and] self-improving activities since shortly after I arrived to CCWF in 2005. I started taking classes to understand offending behaviors and now I facilitate them. I participate in youth devertion programs, I am a certified drug and alcohol specialist, medical biller, I graduated from The Urban Ministry Institute, I’m a peer mentor, and I’ve worked in construction. I’ve taken college classes through the correspondence program, majoring in behavioral science.”
Here’s an obvious question: what was the point behind all of this societal investment into Tasha’s rehabilitation if the intent has never been to reintroduce her back into society? And not just Tasha, but any of the 107,000 youths sentenced as adults for what they did as adolescents.
I an essay Tasha wrote, titled “The Forgotten,” she makes an excellent point:
“After just over 18 years of incarceration, I have transcended the destruction mentality that led to my incarceration. In fact, my criminality did not follow me into my adulthood, yet my life sentence has. As an adult I have learned how to make my life count in spite of my confinement. I have learned how to act with circumspection, displayed consistent, responsible behavior, completed numerous programs, facilitate, and most significantly, I have worked with programs like Beyond Incarceration to deter youths from crime. I have re-entry plans, family and community support, I even have the support of my victim’s next of kin. What I don’t have is a system that recognizes my rehabilitation. I (like thousands of others) am stuck in the paradigm of a retributive and punishment based system.”
As the society we claim to be we need to find the courage to change and reinvent a system that no longer — if ever it did — serves our interests. And in doing so, remind ourselves that we depend on prosecutors to protect our societal interest by enforcing our laws — not inventing them.
When it comes to criminal cases the objective is not only to enforce our societal rules but to ensure a just outcome for both the state and the defendant; and it’s hard to see how justice for any party is achieved when a prosecutor takes it upon himself to determine that an adolescent should be charged as an adult. A determination that brings with it a sentence with no guaranteed parole and states that are known for denying parolees before their hearing even took place.
I know from personal experience how unpopular it can be to defend someone who has allegedly committed an atrocity. I know because I too am that someone. My innocence or the incongruities of the state’s case against me has always meant very little to the responsible parties of my wrongful conviction. And a large part of what is so infuriating about a case like Tasha’s is just how quick these elected district attorneys are to pull the trigger on extinguishing a young life, and at the same time unwilling to do the same for the kinds of legislation and societal investment that would prevent countless other tragedies just like this one from taking place in the first place.
Whether they should be given “leniency” (as some politicians on the right have described it), or whether their youth should be a mitigating factor in sentencing, since there exists a plethora of evidence showing that their undeveloped minds and youth makes them more receptive to rehabilitative efforts, is a dilemma that we need to confront, discounting the fear-based rhetoric while turning up the volume on the research and evidence all around us.
The only beneficiary of this “bridge to nowhere” arrangement, that is mass incarceration, are the contractors who provide this unnecessary service at the expense of the preventative, community investments that should be pursued, but won’t, due to the already established arrangement of doubling down on this loosing hand of caging our problems.
My intent is not to discount or discredit the pain and suffering that Tasha’s actions have caused to the victim’s family and the community at large. Both are so real they are palpable. But healing is not going to be achieved through the systematic, penal torture problem of this living, breathing, feeling, consciously aware woman who has long since proven her rehabilitation.
Countability for our individual actions is crucial for our society to affectively govern itself, encouraging certain behaviors over others. But the only way to give justice to victims is to help prevent them from being victims in the first place. If all we can offer someone who has had their life outwardly and inwardly dismantled and wrecked by some senseless crime are empty words about remorse and vengeance, then we have failed as a society.
Tasha deserves a second chance and a free life, and the message that her freedom will send to every violent youth offender is the one we want to send: find yourself, work hard, rehabilitate, and we will give you a second chance.
Latasha Brown Source: Change.org
Sign Tasha’s petition at change.org/please-send- Latasha-Brown-Home. In doing so you make a statement to the business that is America: we are more than numbers accounted for on your ballot sheets, we are a nation of people; and our society will not be built around your profit schemes.
Let’s make ‘Second Chance’ legislation a priority and national agenda LWOP, as I have previously wrote, is not the best of what we are — it’s a stopgap from where we have been to where we must go. Denying someones freedom who has demonstrated their rehabilitative state is so far and beyond “cruel and unusual” it’s barbaric and we the people are better than this, and it’s pass time for us to demonstrate as much.