Friday, June 02, 2006

for newspaper

Reform, rehabilitation, positive change. Aren’t these the goals of the federal bureau of prisons? But proven by the execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams on December 13, 2005, all of this is just something to add to the long list of lies that America has been feeding us for countless years. There was no denying the complete change that “Tookie” has accomplished. He co-founded the nationally known Crips gang in 1971. But in recent years he has written nine children’s books to educate young people and initiated the Tookie peace protocol, an international peer mentoring program. He also wrote letters to incarcerated youth, mentored over the phone and through visits to stop people from making the same choices he did. But all of this either went unnoticed or purposefully pushed aside by the powers that be. In this case the terminator. What a fitting name for his role in this situation. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was the only person who could grant Stanley clemency. Clemency is a request for mercy, not to impose the death penalty, but instead life without parole. For whatever reasons governor Schwarzenegger chose not to intervene. I believe with this execution, they were trying to set an example. But what kind of message are they trying to send? No matter what you do you will still be a pawn in the system, so know your role. Because of their own ignorance, some people are tired of hearing about the true issues of class and race so I won’t even go into them. Despite them being the most influential factors of this problem. However these are basic human rights being tossed aside and stepped on. In 1981 he was convicted of murdering four people during two robberies. Even though proclaiming his innocence, all of the witnesses facing felony charges of their own, and no physical evidence pointed toward him. He was still found guilty by a jury of his “peers”. This by the way only consisted of two minorities, neither black. After his tremendous work for the betterment of the urban community, and his obvious transformation, why his case couldn’t be reviewed and he be sentenced to life in jail. I mean the man received the presidential call to service award in 2005 and was a five time Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Five time! At this point was the death penalty really necessary, is my big question. I’m out stating my opinion on the death penalty, I just believe in this situation it was the wrong decision. Life would be punishment enough. Jail is not fun, no one wants to be there. He would still be paying with his life, but still contributing positively to society as he was doing. He could have been used as a resource to why people join gangs and help create more prevention programs. Unfortunately instead of the lives that he supposedly took another has been taken.

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