Transcript
"LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE IS TORTURE" In today's world where there are major advancements in technology, biology, and many other arts and sciences, there seems to also be many retrogressions in humanity. One case in point I'll delve into is the American punishment of LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE is a sentence most often given for the crime of murder in the first degree. In some states, Pennsylvania in particular, it is an automatic sentence. Lets consider what it really means to serve a sentence of LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. It means death by incarceration, that is, being locked in a 6 by 9 prison cell 80 % sometimes 99% of your existence until you die. It's the most widely used and most successful death penalty in the western hemisphere. The average age of this sentence is approximately 21 years old and the average age of death is approximately 70 years old. This means the punishment of LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE last approximately 49 years or two generations. This is the apogee of torture. No where in the earlier history of humankind has such barbarity been condoned. In medieval times it was inconceivable that a prisoner could be sentenced to LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE though the probability he/she would survive more than 10 years imprisonment was slim. In today' s world a prisoner can be expected to survive over 50 years a punishment even barbarians couldn't conceive. The daily life of a typical prisoner in America is one of degradation, humiliation, dehumanization, and physical or psychological oppression. To expose a human being to this every single day, 6 to 16 hours a day, for two generations is the heights of depravity. It is one thing to attack and punish the body but it's something else to attack and punish the mind. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE is the torture of the mind and the punishment of the human spirit. This is wickedness bar-none. The dreaded hell of all the ma j or religions is merely a physical punishment, not even the archetype of evil Lucifer was deemed by God to deserve such a -~ mental torture. Only humankind is capable of designing such an atrocity in the name of God, Law, and Justice. What it means to serve LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE? It means hopelessness To remove hope from a human being, the only gift (and the most important) God saw fit to distribute equally to all, is to destroy that human being. It means denying the essence of a human, that is, the ability to change, to improve, to learn, and be redeemed. It means denouncing forgiveness and redemption and TURN OVER PAGE #2 elevating hatred and retribution as an American socio-cultural principle. Even the thief on the cross was promised the Kingdom of God. Torture, now legalized by the American people (but in reality it was always practiced widely in its prisons), in the traditiona! sense, was done for a purpose, though for a warped rationale. That is, to extract confessions, for example during the Inquistions and Guantanomo Bay, or to coerce some type of behavior or impose discipline, for example, slavery. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE on the other hand is simply gratuitous torture, torture for torture's sake. Not even the feeble excuse, as a deterent to crime, can be hoisted in this case. How can a civilized person explain imprisoning a human as young as 13 years old and keeping them imprisoned until they die at 80 or 90 years old? This in light of the incontrovertible physiological evidence that the Brain of a teenager is under-developed and lacks the capacity to fully comprehend the ramifications of certain deeds. What human rationale can justify imprisoning another human being for 67 to 77 years for a mistake made in their tender years? Most times it's for the murder of one person and many times it's f-or conspiracy to commit murder. That is, they were just involved in some way no matter how minor. However, when educated adults, hidden behind governments, corporations, and the armed forces, murder or cause the murder of hundreds of thousands and even millions of human beings, the only punishments they receive are accolades, praises, recognition, purple hearts, navy crosses, and national celebrations. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE is America's most effective and widely used weapon of mass destruction against its own citizens, especially it's African American and Hispanic population. One wonders what message is being sent. Could it be that we're a sadistic society that thrives on human anguish and suffering. Is it that a significant percentage of evolution's highest order, human being, are so intractable and impervious to change they must be incapacitated and isolated from society forever. When this is viewed in the larger context the age of barbarism can be seen to be alive and well in the 21st century. To serve a sentence of LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE is to observe your soul slowly ebb away, drip by drip, until the body becomes nothing but a living, functional casket of humanity. Death of the spirit occurs many, many years before the actual NEXT PAGE PAGE #3 sentence is completed. This is the true meaning of the phrase "DEAD MAN WALKING" We Lifers are real zombies, nothing but modern mummies. At least in ancient Egypt the society waited until a person was physically dead before they were mummified. Today mummification happens to many convicts while they're still alive. "This system is rigid, and hopeless, and I believe it to be cruel and wrong. I hold this slow daily tampering with the mysteries of the Brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body."
