MI- Deputy warden refuses to give up on young inmates

9-3-2009 Michigan:

With this state having some of the nation's toughest laws for young criminals, Michigan's adult prisons hold 537 inmates 15-18 years old. Most of them don't learn much, except how to become more skilled and hardened criminals.

In one of the few states that treats 17-year-olds as adults, juveniles can be automatically charged as adults at 14 for certain serious crimes. Kids of any age can be sentenced as adults. Nearly 350 Michigan inmates are serving mandatory life sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles. These misguided policies are driven by heinous, high-profile cases like that of 12-year-old Demarco Harris, who could be sentenced to life in prison for the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Trisha Babcock.

Most of the juveniles sent to adult prison are locked up at Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer. Adult prisons aren't made for treatment, so I didn't expect to find much hope when I visited Thumb last week. I was wrong. What's starting to happen there is a model -- rooted in acting Deputy Warden Dewayne Burton's belief that young people can change.

It's a radical idea in a state that has virtually outlawed second chances, but Burton, 42, is no typical prison administrator. Walking through the yard, he greeted inmates by name, stopping to talk along the way.

"I had a brother who did seven years in prison," he told me later. "My great grandmother was a drug dealer and my uncles were pimps. But I had a father who stepped in and pulled me away from all that. I know what can make a difference."

Unfortunately, most of the young offenders at Thumb didn't get that kind of help. Tough facades can mask a lot of pain. Burton recently sat down with one young offender, after he started to act out, and learned the boy's mother had just gone back to crack and prostitution.

Burton decided that these young men needed more than prison, or society, had given them: real guidance, purpose and values. Most will leave prison in four years or so, and Burton wants them to go home better prepared for a successful life. With the help of inmate Antonio Espree and Raphael B. Johnson, a former prisoner and current Detroit City Council candidate, Burton is starting a program that will pair an adult prison staff member and a selected adult inmate with small groups of juvenile offenders. In five or six daily group sessions, the adults will challenge the twisted thinking that led them to prison and often keeps them there.

"We have people who will fight and jeopardize their paroles because someone said something about a street they used to live on," Burton said. "We want them to think about how self-defeating that is."

Using older inmates will give the program credibility, said Espree, 38, who's serving a life sentence for murder. Espree left an abusive home at 15 and sold drugs. His stepfather was addicted to heroin and his mother to alcohol. He was 16 when he shot and killed Emanuel Billups, a bystander during a shootout between two crews battling over drug turf.

"I see myself in them," he told me. "They have to understand that their lives have value and that carrying a gun, disrespecting people or selling dope doesn't make them a man."

Young offenders will get real talk on hygiene, dress, getting along with others, discipline, job seeking, starting a business and managing money. Sounds simple, but many of these guys haven't learned the basic stuff we take for granted, like how to clean and groom themselves.

Burton said he plans to use music as therapy, getting inmates to express their feelings through rap. He also will use community speakers and volunteers such as Johnson. None of these efforts will cost the state an added dime, but Burton expects to improve behavior in prison and lower recidivism rates.

Giving up on these young people is a self-defeating, and self-fulfilling, policy that Michigan can no longer afford. The threat of adult prison won't deter an impulsive juvenile who doesn't look beyond the next three hours and thinks he has an S on his chest. If we -- families, neighbors, churches, mentors -- won't reach out and teach them, the streets will.

Speaking to more than 100 juveniles on Sunday night, Johnson asked how many needed help. Every hand on the yard shot up. Outside, where it counts, in the homes, neighborhoods and communities of Michigan, it's time the rest of us answered the call. ..Source.. by JEFF GERRITT, FREE PRESS COLUMNIST