A community forum at the Kingsessing Recreation Center (4901 Kingsessing Ave.) on Friday, Dec. 8 will focus on life-without-parole sentences and include speakers ranging from legislators and family members of victims to recently released “juvenile lifers.”
The Community Educational Forum on Life Without Parole, which will run from 6:15 p.m. to 8:15 p.m., will include discussion of state legislation that would provide parole eligibility for men and women serving life sentences. Under current law, anyone convicted of first- or second-degree murder in Pennsylvania receives a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
Forum organizer Gregory Benjamin said that he used to be skeptical of providing parole eligibility to lifers, but changed his mind after meeting with prisoners at Graterford, the maximum security prison 25 miles outside of Philadelphia.
“It took me some time to truly understand the significance of this campaign, but now I see that it’s about real rehabilitation,” said Benjamin of the Kingsessing Fifth Division Community of Neighbors. “When an individual has served their time in the penitentiary, shown remorse for their crime, and made real strides to improve himself or herself, we need to give them another chance. This is what drew me to this issue, and we must educate each other about why second chances are so crucial.”
Pennsylvania has one of the largest lifer populations in the United States and is one of only a handful of states that does not offer some sort of parole eligibility for those convicted of homicide.
Speakers will include State Sen. Anthony “Hardy” Williams; John Pace, who was sentenced to life without parole at the age of 17 but was released earlier this year after more than 30 years in prison when the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juvenile was unconstitutional; and family members of murder victims.
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