Can you imagine your 17 year old son's best friend showing up at your door visibly wounded if not beaten, barely clothed and begging for help?
You know who he is running from, you know who has hurt him and you know that every other time this has happened when you called the police the boy was taken back to his abusers screaming and begging not to be.
Can you imagine the police taking a battered wife back to her abuser? Yet we send a child?
Can you imagine that you live in DouglasCounty? Maybe you live in Lone Tree, the Pinery or the Timbers. You are Venture Capitalists. Money is not much of a concern beyond managing it in a wise way. You worked hard to get where you are and you are trying to give your children everything that you never had and only dreamed that you would be able to give them someday....
Can you imagine that one day the Douglas County Police Department comes to your home to arrest your 17 year old son for helping in the killing of the abuser of his best friend? The same best friend your family tried so hard to help....
Now hold on to your heart and imagine that your son is charged as an adult. He is found guilty of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole. Your son did not commit the murder, he only walked into a murder scene.
The murder of a mother, whom along with her husband, the boy's father, had been brutalizing him since early childhood. Your son knows that over the last many months his parents and other parents have turned to the law for help, only finding more trouble.
Your son makes a critical mistake and decides to help his best friend clean up the mess. The best friend testifies many times that your son did not participate in the murder and that he did not know anything about it...still your son sits behind bars...with grown men who have committed unmentionable crimes and received lesser sentences.
Should that mistake cost him his life?
Should the boy that suffered an entire life of brutal abuse at the hands of both parents be punished in such a way that further destroys his spirit?
Should any child?
This is not a made up nightmare. This is the story of Erik Jensen and his parents Curt and Pat Jensen. It is ultimately the story of Nathan Ybanez and his desperate painful escape from hell. Nathan was born into a world of constant, unpredictable abuse.
Nathan's father was also brutalized as a child. It was only inevitable that he too would do awful things to his son. It is the cycle of abuse that we are so desensitized to. Nathan's mother was no better than his father. In fact, she may have surpassed her husband in the area of psychological and emotional abuse; the kind of abuse that goes straight to the soul of a boy.
The events leading up to the brutal murder of Julie Ybanez are painful to read. None of the abuse was ever entered into as evidence at Nathan's trial...and nothing Nathan said about Erik's actions that day were ever believed. Once you know this story you will never say that only the rich are protected in the criminal justice system....that is just simply not the case...
Juvenile Justice is not a new concept. It is an old idea that during the 90's slowly fell out of favor. "Get tough on crime" has been good in some respects, but make no mistake, it has gone too far.
It's easy to understand how our society lost sight of the idea that children, even 16 and 17 year old children, have a better chance at real rehabilitation than any other group.
During the 90's we suffered through school shootings. We suffered through Columbine. We heard constantly about the growing threat of gang violence. Remember the infamous summer of violence?
Interestingly enough that violent summer ended when the Pope came for World Youth Day. Strange irony, don't you think? During the 90's we moved to charging children as adults so we could get longer sentences. We were seeking retribution and vengeance for our collective pain.
It seems almost a reaction to a sense of shock. Our children seemed more violent than ever. How do we solve this problem? It was the question we answered with; "well they are committing adult crime so lets treat them like adults." Lock them up and throw away the key....
Retribution and vengeance will not resolve the pain and the issues that are created with charging children as adults. Furthermore it will not resolve the very real and threatening issue of prison overcrowding. I would suggest that Restorative Justice is the only answer.
Restorative Justice is a term used to describe a myriad of concepts within the criminal justice system. It includes everything from community policing to victim's rights. It includes real rehabilitation for every offender from education to drug and alcohol addiction to mental health issues.
Ultimately it is about forgiveness. It's about the family whose mother was killed by a drunk driver participating in programs together with the offender in order to bring forgiveness. It is about the family forgiving the offender and the offender forgiving himself. Restorative justice is also about smart legislation.
It's about understanding that we must begin to build a better plan. We can't continue to build more and more prisons....we can't send children to prison for life...we can't put them in adult prisons.....we simply can't do it. We have to begin to find a way to bring the light of forgiveness into the darkness of the criminal justice system.
Forgiveness has always been the hardest thing for me to do.....and I don't think I am alone in this. I am always remembering the words that Jesus spoke about forgiveness....that it is easy to forgive your friend but it is much more difficult to forgive your enemies.....but that we have to.....
I am asking all of you to pay attention to this matter. I want you to familiarize yourself with the Pendulum Foundation. It is a juvenile justice foundation started by the Jensen's after the awful experience their family suffered through.
There have been several articles written on the work being done at the Pendulum Foundation, including an article from Rolling Stone Magazine and a story that ran on BBC last fall. You can find more information at
www.pendulumfoundation.com.
Everyone who could imagine their own child, or a child they know,making a critical mistake as all children tend to do should either donate money to the foundation or become a volunteer...Everyone who knows a child suffering in an abusive frightening enviroment should get involved..The Pendulum Foundation can help you.
All of us need to be involved.It is so important right now....The climate is changing in Colorado. The legislature is considering spending a great deal of money on building prisons. Tell your representative to consider other options...tell them not to give up on our children....even the worst of the worst....we cant give up on them.
You can visit
www.NextDayFoundation.org to learn more about Erik Jensen and his parent's story. The Next Day Foundation started by the Jensen's has tried to help young kids in awful situations to reach out and find help. Imagine the lessons and the impact that Erik and Nathan could teach and have on a generation of children about making choices....about rising above violence....imagine what they could do......
These young men are not lost in the prison of their hearts. Nathan feels safer now than he did when he was living with his parents. He has obtained his GED. He studies subjects like physics and other hard subjects that I can barely spell. Erik is a published author of a fantastic science fiction fantasy series called The Orphan Mage.
It is an awesome story....I have only started to read it and I can say that it is just so incredible....and I'm not even a science fiction fantasy kind of reader.....I love Harry Potter and in a sense this is similar but for adults! Buy it and read it!
Erik and Nathan are not the only juveniles suffering in prisons with adults without any chance of parole....there are too many and I'm going to continue to bring you their stories and I am going to continue to ask that you become informed and involved in these issues....