Filmed by the National Center for Youth Law,
an advocacy group assisting her, Sarah tells in full detail her
background, and the path leading up to the prison cell she resides in
today. She
grew up in Riverside, California, in the home of a drug-addicted mother
who frequently abused her. Nonetheless, this "over-achiever" excelled
in school, making the principal's Honor Roll consistently, running
track, winning a Young Author's Award for a book on the effects of
drugs. It all seemed like the perfect Horatio Alger mythology come
true, until she met a 31-year-old man, G.G.
The
missing "father figure" vacuum in her life was happily filled by G.G.
who would take her and her friends skating and to the mall. "G.G. was
there at some times," she says, "and he would talk to me, take me out,
and give me all these lavish gifts... and then he would tell me,
sex-wise, 'you don't need to give it up for free'." G.G. was a skilled
manipulator who knew what he wanted, and just how to get it. When Sarah
turned 13, he raped her.
"He
uses his manhood to hurt--like break you in," Sarah recounts. The
break-you-in allusion is a mere euphemism for prostitution. At that
same age, Sarah was put on the streets, working 12-hour shifts
(6P.M.-6.A.M.) for G.G. Sarah saw none of the money she worked for.
"Everything was his," she reports.
Three
years later, fed up and frustrated, Sarah snapped and killed G.G., and
was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole. Plus four years.
She
recounts the court proceedings: "I remember my lawyer saying that he
wanted to ask for me to be sentenced as a Juvenile because Y.A. [California Youth Authority]
had found me amenable and susceptible to the treatment; but the judge
said that because of my crime--and he said it was well
thought-out--that I deserved life without."
"That
means I'm gonna die here," she heartbreakingly reflects. And with tears
soaking up her eyes, admits all wrongdoing: "I definitely know I
deserve punishment: I mean, you don't just take somebody's life and
think that it's okay; so, yes, definitely, I deserve punishment." But
then she asks, and answers, a question the judge who sentenced her
should have pondered more carefully: "How much? I don't know."
Even
while the possibility of life beyond bars looks gloomy for Sarah, she's
tried to "educate" herself, "reading books," though admits it's hard to
"excel in prison."
Perhaps
this was what her judge imagined when he condemned her for lack of
"moral scruples." But given the opportunity at a parole hearing, Sarah
would like to tell the board: "first of all, I've learned what moral
scruples are; second, that every day is a challenge ... that I've found
the ability to believe in myself, and that I have a lot of good to
offer, now--the person who I am today, at 29: I believe that I could
set a positive example. I'm very determined to show that no matter what
you've done, or where you've come from, or what you've experienced in
life, it's up to you to change."
This is California, a state with
150,000 inmates, 70% recidivism, 200% capacity, and $10 billion for its
prison industrial complex budget. So, it makes sense that even harmless
offenders like Sarah Kruzan, whose action while unlawful seem
reasonable, are condemned as irredeemable, thus deserving of an
existence devoid of any shot at redemption. CONTINUE READING...
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