01 4A - Thursday, November 10, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com eJbE 1Jigan &aI j Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com MICHELLE DEWITT STEPHANIE STEINBERG and EMILY ORLEY NICK SPAR EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com. Life sentence too long State should reconsider juvenile lifer policy M ichigan has more juvenile lifers - people between age 14 and 17 who are sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole - than every state except Penn- sylvania. With 358 people currently serving life sentences who were convicted as juveniles, this is not a ranking the state should be eager to maintain. While some of these young people committed heinous crimes, some were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Michigan lawmakers must re-evaluate the policy of life sentences for juveniles because some of these youth may deserve a second chance. HANNAH DOW E-MAIL HANNAH AT HDl)OW@UMICII.EDU It's almost time... V'Wifwcr Qo0y To look about 30 pounds heavier. Consider returning to nature 0 Some of the charges that can result in a life sentence include first-degree murder and sec- ond-degree murder. A life sentence is unrea- sonable for some youth who receive these, charges. This was the case for Keith Maxey, who at age 16 fled the scene of an attempted drug theft in 2007 in which another person was killed. Maxey was unarmed and was shot during the incident, but he was still charged with felony murder and sentenced to life in prison. He is currently involved in a federal lawsuit against the state to overturn the life sentence. The purpose of the penitentiary system is not to keep criminals locked up forever but to provide an opportunity to rehabilitate them back into society. Criminals who enter the sys- tem as youth are more likely to go through this process successfully. A person undergoes major psychological and personal changes from ado- lescence to adulthood, and young criminals are no exception. These individuals should be re- evaluated to see if they have changed from the time they committed their crime. The state should grant convicted juveniles a second chance at a free life if the state feels they are genuinely remorseful. Teenagers who are convicted of serious crimes should still face substantial jail time, but allowing them to be sentenced as adults to lifetime imprisonment without parole is unjust. Michigan should not exclusively treat juveniles as adults in murder convictions, but should evaluate crimes com- mitted by youth on a case-by-case basis. Michigan should also provide services to help imprisoned juveniles learn to understand the impact of their crimes and what led to the decisions they made. Offering counseling and mental health services could help with this rehabilitation process. Trained mental health professionals should routinely monitor a juve- nile's mental health. Locking up juveniles for the duration of their lives is also an extreme financial burden for Michigan citizens. Supporting juvenile lif- ers costs Michigan residents more than $10 million each year. Taxpayers must foot the bill for food, clothing and medical care for every prisoner. The longer a juvenile is imprisoned, the more expensive it becomes for taxpayers. There are terrible crimes committed by young people that are unforgivable and deserv- ing of a life sentence. But as is the case with Maxey's conviction, this is not always the cir- cumstance. Michigan needs to reconsider its current treatment of juvenile lifer convictions and make sure it gives all criminals fair treat- ment under the law. W e're approaching Thanksgiving, our all-American harvest festival. Theo- logian Reinhold Niebuhr once asked if it was "really possible -1 to have an hon- est Thanks- " giving in an industrial civili- JOEL zation." Instead BATTERMAN of celebrat- ing the gifts of nature and nature's God, he wor- ried, the holiday risked becoming a collective pat on the back, since humans thought they mastered nature with their machines. That might be true. But ina development Niebuhr might not have anticipat- ed, some of the most industrialized youth who've ever lived are now looking to find honest work beyond industrial civilization. A surprising number of students I know are going into novel fields, so to speak. They're working on organ- ic farms scattered across the coun- try: at the shores of Lake Michigan, against the foothills of the Rockies, on a small island off the coast of Washington, even in the post-indus- trial cities of the Rust Belt. For some, agriculture is a temporary activity. "WWOOFing," or taking advantage of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is an easy route to a summer, semester or longer period of farm work in exchange for room (or tent) and board. For others, agrarian living is a lifelong vocation. I haven't spent more than a day on one of these farms myself, but I can understand their attraction, especially for a set of environmen- tally conscious, fairly privileged students from professional fami- lies. Many aspects of industrial civilization are getting hard to deal with, not just at a global level, but at a personal level as well. The agrari- an escape can provide a way out, for individuals who pursue it, though I'm less sure whether it would work for society as a whole. If you think about it, getting back down to Earth is a logical response for young people confronting the hyperextension of higher educa- tion, the joke that's the job market and the crazed competition that dominates both. It's no wonder that some of us are forsakingthe resume rush for an occupation that tends to emphasize cooperation, stability and a slower pace of production. No plant is going to complain if you're a few minutes late with the water. Farming also involves making real, tangible products - stuff you can sink your teeth into, which citizens of this country don't do too often anymore. Indeed, many pro- fessional students don't get to do any kind of real work at all. Educa- tor John Dewey warned about the "loss of moral power that arises from the constant impression that nothing is worth doing in itself, but only as a preparation for something else, which in turn is only a get- ting ready for some genuinely seri- ous end beyond." When you grow things, though, you can have your crops and eat them too. Then there's the political sub- text. For many practitioners, do-it- yourself agriculture offers a radical alternative to industrial civilization and its evils - from McDonald's to climate change. These practitioners see growing food as the first step in a new agricultural revolution that would eliminate the unequal rela- tionship between producer and consumer, shake off supply chains and liberate local communities from global capital. The agrarian adventure has promise. I have some doubts about that. It can be hard to separate what's revolutionary from what's merely therapeutic. The metaphor of "cul- tivating our garden," observed by 1960s activist and historian Todd Gitlin, often represents "the tradi- tional middle class way of renounc- ing the world." Some student farm workers hint at that notion. "I'm not sure that I can change ... poli- tics in Washington, but here I can see the fruits of my labor," one told a reporter, while another says he's gained self-reliance, a classic industrial virtue contradicting the natural interdependencies Niebuhr mourned. Meanwhile, the planet burns and 3 million immigrant farm workers in this country lack the rights we take for granted. The agrarian adventure has promise. We badly need alternative models to industrial civilization. Yet I tend to think the best farms will be the ones that also foster con- tinuous engagement with the soci- ety beyond their fences. We require hands to sow the seeds of change, but we also need others to redis- tribute the harvest they reap. -Joel Batterman can be reached at jomba@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Vanessa Rychlinski, Caroline Syms, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner KATHARINE ZUREK I A class in relationship safety --the The Complete Spectrum: Chris Dyer evaluates a British man's claims that a stroke made him gay. poi um Go to michigandaily.com/blogs/The Podium MADELYN STUMPOS AND JORDAN REILLY I Spare some change for change In her viewpoint (Workshop in need of a remix, 11/8/11) Jesse Klein asserts that the concepts presented in the Relationship Remix Workshop are, to incoming freshmen, "obvi- ous and basic about relationships - things that anyone smart enough to get into the Uni- versity would already know." As a facilitator of these workshops I can understand where Klein is coming from. Sure, it may seem obvi- ous that trust, communication and consent are all components of healthy relationships. Those of us who work in the field of sexual- ized violence prevention, however, are aware of the theory-to-practice disconnect present in discourse on healthy relationships. While many incoming freshmen - and much of the general population - are able to assert the obvious components of healthy relationships, when 20 to 25 percent of women in college have experienced a completed or attempted sexual assault, the disconnect between what people say they know and how they behave is obvious. In order to bridge the theory-to-practice gap in consent and healthy relationships on campus, the Relationship Remix Workshop asks participants to pair up and practice hav- ing conversations in which giving and receiv- ing consent is necessary. Klein thought this experience was "uncomfortable, unrealistic and purposeless." I completely affirm Klein's experience of discomfort. However, I believe the general discomfort in these activities arises from the fact that we are not taught to have conversations about sex. In movies, sex just happens; music plays and things happen smoothly - there is never a realistic conver- sation about the expectations of, or feelings about, the activity. As facilitators of Relationship Remix, we expect these conversations to be a bit awk- ward because we have all been socialized to remain silent about sex. In response to these practice conversations being "unrealistic," I again affirm Klein's feelings - these conver- sations aren't happening at the frequency we would like to see. But there lies the point of the workshop: for people to integrate conver- sations about consent and healthy relation- ships into their lives. It is unfortunate that Klein feels the Uni- versity is treating all incoming freshmen like naive children because that is far from what they are doing. Rather, the University is tak- ing into account the diverse experiences of all incoming freshmen. While some people have learned about consent and sexualized violence in high school health classes, and some have been in situations in which they've been able to give, decline to give, receive or accept the rejection of consent, these are not the experiences of all freshmen. There are many communities that do not approve of dating, partying or drinking alcohol. There are some students who have come from fami- lies and high schools in which interactions with potential dating partners were limited. Starting with the basics of healthy relation- ships, consent and coercion and actually skill-building around these issues are ways to educate in a way that is inclusive of all previous experiences, knowledge levels and choices of dating partners. As a final note, I sincerely do not doubt the maturity level and lack of naivete of Klein and appreciate very much the attempt to answer the questions of facilitators during the workshop. However, in my experience, some audience members are unable to lis- ten respectfully when a Relationship Remix facilitator is speaking, some make offensive and homophobic remarks and, in Klein's own words, treat the experience "as a joke or (do) not do the activit(ies) at all." It is my sincere hope that freshmen (and all students) rec- ognize the need to practice healthy behav- iors rather than just hear about them and that this recognition will result in attentive, mature audiences for all future Relationship Remix Workshops. Katharine Zurek is an LSA senior. Many students who attend the University would like to become involved in community service, but some- times it may be difficult to find an organization or cause in which you can become actively involved and. actually see the impact of your service from the begin- ning through the end. The University's chapter of the Foundation for the International Medical Relief of Children is a student organization that helps students become involved in community service locally and abroad. FIMRC was started in 2002 to address the health disparities found in many countries - paying particular attention to the plight of underserved pediatric groups. The founda- tion operates through clinic sites to provide high-qual- ity medical care and preventative education to those who don't have access to health care. At the clinic sites, children often come in malnour- ished or with pneumonia. First, the doctor needs to prescribe medication to immediately treat the prob- lem. But the problem is often due to poor hygiene or parasites, and the patient and the family need to be educated on how to prevent the problem from occur- ring in the future. Since its inception, the national organization has started self-sustaining clinics around the world and now has more than 3,000 staff and volunteers who help carry out their dream of improving the health of impoverished children around the world. But what makes FIMRC unique is the importance of its many college chapters. It's primarily through the fundraising efforts of college chapters that the inter- national clinic sites stay open all year. Something service organizations - like ours - are often asked is, "Why does FIMRC bother going abroad? Why don't you focus on helping United States citizens in need?" Some people may think that we need to honor our duty to our own country before helping people overseas. But we believe if we accept arguments like this, we will be valuing the lives of Americans over those around the world, and that is undesirable. The value of a person's life is the same, no matter where he or she was born. But we don't believe in neglecting our community. FIMRC strongly believes in having a large local impact. As volunteer chairs, we can certainly say this is true, since our role in FIMRC is to find opportunities for FIMRC members to reach out to the Ann Arbor com- munity. We hold a variety of events from volunteering at retirement homes and serving at soup kitchens to playing games with kids at the Detroit Medical Center. So how can students get involved in service proj- ects here and abroad? We'll help find opportunities for students who join FIMRC to serve in local communi- ties in a variety of ways. Another hands-on way to get involved is to travel to one of the clinic sites and volun- teer. One of our members, student Stephen Philip, went for a week to Costa Rica to visit the clinic site in the summer of 2010. "When you are at the clinic, you can see the health problems that underserved populations experience and some of the political and socioeconomic reasons for those problems," Philip said about his experience. "The impact on your life will hopefully be profound. Once you come back from a mission trip, you will be more willing to educate others about what you have seen and have a greater passion for fundraising for the clinics based off your firsthand experiences." The final way to help out with service projects is to go to some of the fundraising events FIMRC holds. We will be holding our largest fundraiser of the school year, the annual Benefit Dinner, tonight from 5 p.m.- 8 p.m. in the Psych Atrium in East Hall. Restaurants from all over Ann Arbor donate food to the event for students and the community to enjoy. There will also be items up for auction. The admission ticket for the dinner will get you as much food as you can fit onto one plate and, more importantly, it will go directly to improvingthe lives of children around the world. With this in mind, please come and "spare some change for change," and get a great meal out of it too! As students, we need to do everything we can to help promote a spirit of volunteerism and service. In the end, it's not a matter of which organization you choose to work with, but rather the motivation and passion with which you work. Rather than simply reminiscing about the great service deeds done by University students in the past, but use that legacy to propel you to do greater acts of service in our community and around the world. Madelyn Stumpos and JordIan Reilly are the fundraising coordinators for FIMRC. 0 0 0