Children in Prison.

Sara Kruzan: Life Without Parole for Killing her Pimp

Let's discuss the video that I have linked to this blog and the fact that we have children sitting in prison for life.

A 16 year old girl who had been raped by her pimp since she was 13 thinks there is no way out for her from this hellish life except to kill her pimp. She gets life without parole and then some. Fair? Is this justice? Let's take a look at that.

Now don't get me wrong on this, I hate my taxpayer dollars being spent on long drawn out trials just as much as the next person. I truly do.

I hate it SO much whenever a defendant gets on the stand and wastes taxpayer money and the Courts time by sobbing about what a crappy childhood they had or how they were entangled in the clutches of drug addiction or alcoholism or how they were abused by their husband/wife (whoever). My normal reaction is "so what"?? LOTS of people in this world are abused, raped, beaten, drug addicted, alcohol addicted and still they manage to see another way out of their situation. It happens every stinking day. These people don't resort to murder to get out of their situations.

However, in ever-increasing frequency you run across a person who truly had no other avenue available to them and this is the situation with this young woman.

She was raised by a neglectful (to put it mildly) mother. She had no father in her life. She was an isolated 11 year old when she met her future pimp. He treated her very well for a couple of years and worked his mind control "magic" on her before raping her at the age of 13 and then putting her out on the streets as a prostitute. Her hours were from 5 to 5.

Now where was her mother during this? My daughter was once 13. Do you think for a second that I would allow her to be gone during those hours? Uh, no. For that matter do you think I am going to allow her to run around with a grown man when she is 11 without me being present at all times? Uh, no. Neither of these scenarios would have happened. Not on a dare! However, no adult stepped in to protect this child. They in effect threw her to the wolves without a second thought.

Sara had NO ONE to protect her. She was a child left to her own devices and made to look out for herself. I don't care how "street smart" you are, when you are 11, your decision making abilities are not to the point that you can protect yourself from every situation that crops up. Not nearly.

For Sara, there was no trusted adult anywhere in her life that she felt she could turn to and ask for help. She absolutely fell through the cracks in her life. So, she did the only thing she could think of to do in her 13 year old mind. She murdered her pimp to put an end to this hell.

When she was sentenced, the judge told her that she had no "moral scruples". SHE WAS 11 YEARS OLD WHEN HE GOT HIS HANDS ON HER! Where in the world (or at least in her world) would she possibly have had moral scruples taught to her? Who in her world had the ability to show by example or to teach these to her? Who in her world even possessed them?

After she got to prison she had to look these words up in a dictionary because she didn't even know what they meant. Does that sound like a hardened killer to you?

Even she admits she should be punished for what she did. Even she admits that what she did was wrong. Why should she have to spend the rest of her natural life in prison when it is her mother and the pimp who should be punished. Well, the pimp did get his sentence, but her mother is free as a bird and able to do as she pleases while the daughter that she created sits in prison.

This is just not right!!

To date, over 2200 children have been sentenced as adults and sent to adult prisons in this country.

Prisons (at least in America) were initially created as a way to rehabilitate the criminals who could still be rehabilitated and only as a last resort to warehouse those individuals who needed to remain off the streets for the safety of the general public. Sara is no threat to the general public. She is a shining example of someone who could very easily be rehabilitated.

I'm all for the 3rd strike laws. If you didn't learn anything the first two times, then by the third time, you need to go away permanently. That's my take on it. But if you are a child, I don't care what heinous act you have committed, there is always the possibility, however slight, that you can be rehabilitated and at some point in your life, you can lead a productive and law abiding life! We aren't a country of psychics! How can anyone say with complete certainty that a child can NEVER be reformed? No one knows that!! And by locking that child up with adult offenders for any period of time, we are insuring that they are lost forever.

Stop sending money to other countries so their children can be educated and fed and clothed and protected! SPEND THAT MONEY IN OUR OWN COUNTRY SO OUR CHILDREN CAN BE PROPERLY FED, CLOTHED, HOUSED, PROPERLY EDUCATED AND MOST OF ALL - PROTECTED!

Start sending these children to juvenile facilities. Not the ones we currently have in place. They are nothing more than junior prisons and warehouses.

Let's spend the money to create facilities where the children will be emotionally, psychologically and physically cared for. Let's give them the tools that they obviously did not get from the adults in their lives to deal with life's numerous situations without resorting to violence. Let's up their opinion of themselves a notch or two. MOST of these children can be salvaged. MOST of these children can learn from their mistakes no matter how horrendous they were and can go forward and be productive law abiding citizens.

Many of them would need to be housed in a mental health facility for sure. But the money we would save down the road would far exceed the money we will spend to house these children in adult prisons for the rest of their lives.

What is wrong with this country???? Why do we turn our backs on our own children while all the time we are sending Angelina Jolie to foreign countries to help their children?? Why are people like Oprah and Madonna opening schools for girls in foreign countries while we have a staggering number of girls in this country every day who are being pushed into prostitution, raped, beaten, molested, etc. Are our girls not worth the time and money?? Are their girls more valuable than ours??

I am sick of this! Spend your time and money HERE. Save OUR children. Let other countries worry about their own children until we have taken ours back.

What hypocrites we are and don't think the rest of the world doesn't see that. We seem to be the only people in the world who doesn't.



But that's just me.

What's up with Oprah and The View??

I just read that Oprah's newest book find about a man confined to a concentration camp in Buchenwald where he meets his future wife, is a fake. How many books has she endorsed to date that were later proven to be fakes? How many "doctors", personal trainers and diets has she endorsed to date that proved to be fake, loose cannons or just outright obnoxious?

She is a very intelligent woman, have to give her that. I also understand that she relies heavily on her research team to authenticate her guests and the wares they come on her show to promote. Maybe she needs to get a new team of researchers because she's not batting too good lately. Perhaps her team is relying too much on the great and powerful Internet for their research rather than the old days when you spoke with real people to either authenticate or refute a person's claims and asked for written documentation. People these days seem to think that whatever they read on the Internet is absolutely 100% true and accurate. Not at all. Most of what you get on the Internet is rumor, conjecture and personal opinions (redundant wasn't it?). Google anything and you will find differing versions of the same story to the point that your head will spin.

Personally I think she's bored with it all. Until recently she was 100% free of scandal, as was her show. The closest she ever came were the persistent rumors about her and Stedman (whatever happened to him anyway? You never hear anything about him.)

I also think she is now buying into all the hype. She is "above" us all. And she is financially, but she acts as if she is next in line just as soon as God decides to retire.

I'm very proud and happy for her because she truly is the American dream personified. She came from nothing and now is worth a bazillion dollars. Couple that with the fact that not only is she a woman but she is a black woman, that's pretty impressive if she never does another thing. However, she is NOT vice-God and needs to come down off her high horse about it.

I recently ran across a list I had compiled of celebrities that I would love to go have drinks with and chat. Apparently I had written this down as something to do while I sat in my doctor's office waiting for my appointment (which had been pushed way back due to pharmacy salespeople descending upon my doctor). I found this in an old purse as I was searching for something else. Oprah was number one on the list! Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell was there, Ellen Degeneres was there, Whoopi Goldberg was there, Rosie ODonnell was there. There were 10 altogether. Most of them would no longer be on my list for one reason or another but Oprah's fall from the list was due to her somewhat recent attitude of loftiness that she has adopted.

For years and years, Oprah was a journalist (in my opinion). Her show had to do with issues and the people involved in them. Not African American issues per se but issues in general. Women issues, family issues, legal issues, societal issues. She was extremely adept at choosing issues that crossed the racial borders and most of the time even the gender borders. She was fair and appeared unbiased. Occasionally she would have a fluff show about fashion or whatever and that was great. But then she took the route that "The View" has taken for some time. She began to take herself and her show far too seriously and as a result, both have suffered.

Now her show is a black show in my opinion. She focuses mainly on black issues and black women issues. I am no longer interested in her show and haven't watched it at all for probably 4 or 5 years. At one time, I NEVER missed her show. EVER. I would record any show that I knew I was going to have to miss. I would hurry home from work so as not to miss it. Everyone I knew did the same. Now I don't know one single person who watches her show anymore. Not one.

Now onto the view. TRAINWRECK. In the beginning, it was fun and informative. I really liked it and I never missed it. Oprah and The View were the only 2 shows I ever recorded. I continued to watch it (not as often)when Star began to believe her name was her status. I even watched it when Star left and Rosie came on board. I knew Rosie had a lot of problems with her staff when she had the magazine but I LOVED her show she had before the magazine so I thought she would bring the same quick and extremely funny wit that she exhibited on her show to the view and I was psyched! Boy was I wrong. She was an out and out bully and although, I rarely agree with Elizabeth, I think Rosie bullied Elizabeth unnecessarily and horribly. The worst part was that Joy and (the ultra flakey & in my opinion unintelligent) Sherri acted like yard dogs and jumped in there as well.

Then Whoopi came. I adored Whoopi. I always felt that there wasn't a prejudiced bone in Whoopi's body UNTIL she came onto the view. Now, she is showing her true colors and I am so disappointed in her. She and Sherri are two of the most prejudiced celebrities that I can think of. They sit up there and make every topic a racial issue. And poor Elizabeth? Yes, I did say that. She is eaten alive on every show. It's as if the show is now not about issues but about how badly can we beat up on Elizabeth and how many times can we interrupt her and prevent her from having the same opportunity to talk that the rest of them enjoy? How many times can we be overly rude to her in one show? It's uncomfortable to watch so I don't.

Even Barbara jumps in the dog fight. Is this necessary? Really? the thing that I loved about the show for so long was the fact that there were diverse women on that panel. Different ages, backgrounds, races. They all had a slightly different take on whatever the topic was and it was refreshing in the way that they told their particular opinion and allowed the others to have their say. It was respectful and funny and they seemed to have a genuine camaraderie. It was womanhood at its finest.

The thing that I have always hated about people (especially women) is that they say they want to debate an issue but then when you try they talk over you or they bully you or they say your opinion is stupid. It turns out they don't want to debate the issue, they just want you to listen to their opinion on it. Why is it that the only people who feel that they can have an opinion or that their opinion is correct are the ubber liberals? Huh? Just because you consider yourself to be liberal does NOT make you an authority on anything. Nor does it make you right nor does it make you more informed or more intelligent than the next person with an opinion.

I have always considered myself a liberal. However, since Whoopi, Joy, Sherri and the overly nauseating Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins arrived in all their "I'm so smart and you are so stupid" glory, I never ever say that I'm a liberal for fear that people will lump me into their category.

I have tried to e-mail the folks at the view and oprah's show but guess what?? Can't find an e-mail for them. I always chuckle when I hear them say something like "I got this e-mail from a viewer". How the hell did that happen?? I can't find a way to e-mail them so how did this "viewer" do it??

So annoying and disappointing. The saddest part about both of these shows is that young women are watching and thinking that this is acceptable behavior. They are thinking this is an acceptable way of dealing with anyone who doesn't agree with your personal views. Well, guess what? It's not! They are running a "how to be a bully" college. It's disgusting, sad, nauseating, depressing and frightening in that this behavior and example will grow future Joy Behar's and Whoopi Goldbergs and Sherri Shepards and the last thing the world needs or deserves are more of them.

But that's just me.