Gabe Newland
Newland is the director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center’s Youth Justice Project. He lives in Portland.
Gov. Kate Brown is considering clemency for hundreds of people who didn’t benefit from recent legislative changes to Oregon’s youth sentencing laws. When these people were kids, they were prosecuted in adult criminal court and received adult prison sentences. Some were sentenced to die in prison, without any hope of release.
The governor’s interest in re-evaluating these cases is good news. For too long, Oregon has tolerated youth sentencing practices that disregard international legal standards and relevant brain science. With clemency, the governor can help correct our state’s historic mistreatment of young people.
Notably, the governor is not proposing to release anyone from prison without review. In a recent letter to the Department of Corrections, she outlined two pathways to the possibility of release. The first is available only to those who have already completed 50% of their sentence. People in this category might receive a commutation after further scrutiny from the executive branch.
With some exceptions, the second pathway is available to people who are serving prison sentences of at least 15 years. People in this category might receive a parole hearing, where they would have a chance to earn release by proving that the harm they caused as kids, however serious, does not reflect the character of the adult they’ve become.
The governor’s approach is a welcome nod to science, which confirms what every parent knows: the brains of young people are not like the brains of adults. They’re still developing, which means that young people are more prone to impulsive, high-risk behavior. It also means that young people have enormous capacity for change.
In the 1990s, our knowledge of the relevant science was less advanced. Unfounded fears of child “super-predators” led many states to adopt harsh sentencing laws for kids—laws that treated them like adults, without accounting for their developing brains. In Oregon, we adopted Measure 11, which required children as young as 15 to face serious criminal charges in adult court. Upon conviction, judges were required to impose long prison terms—even life without the possibility of parole.
In 2019, decades after the adoption of Measure 11, Oregon began to account for scientific developments. Through Senate Bill 1008, the Legislature limited the prosecution of children in adult court, a practice that is condemned by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Now, before kids in Oregon can be prosecuted in adult court, they’re entitled to common-sense procedural protections, including a hearing where a judge is required to evaluate their “sophistication and maturity.”
With SB 1008, the Legislature also banned life-without-parole sentences for children, a punishment that already violated at least one human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and currently exists in only one country: the United States. Now, because of SB 1008, Oregon children who receive long prison sentences are entitled to a parole hearing after 15 years of imprisonment. At the hearing, the parole board must “give substantial weight to the fact that a person under 18 years of age is incapable of the same reasoning and impulse control as an adult.”
SB 1008′s progressive changes are evidence of a maturing society. They reflect our state’s collective moral judgment that it’s wrong to punish young people like adults, without regard for their developing brains.
But the changes in SB 1008 were exclusively forward looking. They did not extend backwards to those who were prosecuted and sentenced under the old laws.
By excluding those affected by laws that we now acknowledge were wrong, SB 1008 drew an arbitrary line, and Gov. Brown should erase it. We frequently ask people in prison to acknowledge their mistakes and work to repair the harm they caused. It’s time for Oregon to do the same. Let’s acknowledge that we mistreated our young people and repair the harm we caused. Our progress shouldn’t leave anyone behind.
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