Long prison sentences might cause—not prevent— violent crime.
Police in Memphis have found the body of Eliza Fletcher, a school teacher who disappeared during an early morning run. Cleotha Abston was charged Sunday.
And, like clockwork, conservatives blamed criminal justice reform for her death.
When he was 16, Abston, along with several other men, carjacked a Memphis attorney, locked him in the trunk, and rode around town forcing him to withdraw money from ATMs.
Abston was charged with aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Up until the election of reform prosecutor Steve Mulroy in August, Memphis had some of the most aggressively draconian DAs in the country. Amy Weirich practically campaigned on trying kids as adults. During her tenure, she resisted revisiting wrongful convictions and refused to prosecute police shootings and put a woman behind bars for accidentally voting as a felon. Yet violent crime only increased.
Far from being an indictment of reform—did Mulroy go back in time 30 years to pursue the “lax” 24-year sentence?—this case illustrates precisely why draconian prosecutions don’t make us safer.
Tennessee metes out 51-year mandatory minimum sentence for juveniles—in cases where the crime caused a death.
Abston’s crime, while horrific, did not result in a death. And, 24 years is, actually, an insanely long sentence. Anders Breivik is serving Norway's maximum 21-year sentence for gunning down dozens of fleeing teenagers in fascist retaliation for their parents’ allegedly liberal politics.
Before everyone starts yelling at me again about how I love criminals and hate victims—this is the point I’m trying to make: No prosecutor is going to give a 16-year-old life in prison for a crime in which no one was killed. Which means that a 16-year-old will get out eventually. But, instead of spending their formative years going to high school and possibly college or a getting a job or starting a family—they will be in prison with grown men.
I’ve talked to enough people in my reporting to know what happens to 16-year-olds in a prison with grown men. Especially if those men are serving life without parole and so have nothing to lose by brutalizing fellow inmates.
There’s this delusion that punishment acts as a deterrent to others and to the offender himself. The first is just absurd. Sure, some dumbass 16-year-old is carefully tracking the trajectory of Abston’s prosecution and sentencing and conducting a cost-benefit analysis that determines it’s not a great idea to kidnap someone and put them in a car trunk.
But the latter assumption is just as absurd. While many, if not most, people go on to live crime-free lives after prison, it’s not because of prison, but in spite of prison.
There’s no going back in time (unless you’re a Dr. Who Time Lord reform DA that’s responsible for all crime that’s ever happened before you were in office) and choosing a different route. But it’s really not beyond the realm of possibility that if Abston had been sent to some kind of therapy diversion program as a teenager we wouldn’t be here today.
Study after study after study shows that purposeful work and strong family and community ties are the key factors preventing recidivism. A long stint in prison make attaining these goal posts all but impossible.
Prison traumatizes people. Traumatized men are more likely to commit violent crimes, particularly against women. It’s really not rocket science.
Would love to chat with you. Have been doing research in this area for over a year. Check out our website at www.advocates4justice.org
As a 16 yr old, he could have been rehabilitated. The long prison sentence with hardened adult criminals, only taught him criminal ways. The system failed and the result, the brutal death of a beautiful young teacher was the horrific result.