James Hamm is a rare murderer.
He readily admits his brutality and his guilt, recounting how he shot and killed a customer who intended to buy marijuana from him in 1974. But in prison, Hamm says, he transformed himself from drug-peddling thug into law-abiding scholar.
He graduated from college while still incarcerated, later completed law school and passed the bar exam on his second try. Now about to turn 55, he wants a license to practice law in Arizona, the same state that imprisoned him for 17 1/2 years for first-degree murder.
This article is fascinating and I highly recommend it. In addition to Mr. Hamm, it discusses the cases of several other convicted murderers who have led exemplary lives after serving long sentences.
It also points out that these reformed murderers are a dying breed, because harsher sentences now keep most murderers from ever getting out, which is increasingly turning our prisons into very expensive nursing homes. "America incarcerated about 110 of every 100,000 people from the 1920s until the 1970s, according to Blumstein. Today, the rate of those in prison has more than quadrupled, to 470 of every 100,000." (See related article, Prison Population Boom Means Added Costs For States)
Good idea? I don't think so. Read the very thought-provoking article excerpted above from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.