Critical Self Analysis

By Jeffery Dean

 This is the profile of a former juvenile offender who is currently serving a life sentence at the state correctional facility in Graterford, Pennsylvania.  This is one facet of my story.

On the evening of September 25, 1974, under the cover of darkness, myself and two other juveniles drastically altered our fates by committing the unthinkable act of taking the life of another human being in a home burglary attempt that went awry.

Back then as a wayward youth of seventeen it seemed like I was in a constant state of haste over the fact that I was still several years away from being considered a legally binding adult.  I could then make decisions on my own without needing parental consent.  However, by the age of seventeen, I thought I was well on my way to being a slick talking, hard drinking, fighting kid whose street prowls were being established by my sense of daring for adventure.

So the burglary would have been just another rung up the ladder for me.  I planned on executing this crime in spite of the presence of someone on the premises.  But the events inside the home of the victim didn’t meet any of my expectations.  I couldn’t account for the actions of my equally intoxicated accomplice who sought to extinguish the life of the victim unbeknown to me.

My accomplice’s decision to murder the victim had not even been discussed between us.  We never discussed how we were to proceed if someone stumbled in on us during the course of the burglary.  I naively further complicated things by willfully accepting the challenge of taking the life of the occupant.

Like most juveniles of today, whose acts of assertiveness are fueled by the illusion that material consumption will some how heighten their sense of honor among their peers and contemporaries who adhere to the thug theory of making it as a star ghetto hustler.

As a result of my accomplice’s actions, and mine, I was charged, arrested, tried and adjudicated as an adult.  I was given the sentence of life without the option of parole.  I can unequivocally state that I am no longer without hope.  Even though I, like other juveniles who were imprisoned as mere minors, were without the ability to even fathom the ramifications of how we would be judged. 

Because out of every earth shattering tragic experience, when a child offends the law at the level I once did, that traumatic experience will, in time, begin to permeate the very reasons that lead them to their down fall.

Without external coaching, any self correcting former juvenile offender will try hard to vanquish those demons that will lie festering in the psyche of the his mind.  The demons will stay if they cannot come to terms with the

I’ll conclude my purpose for writing this profile here for the moment, but I’ll follow through with another facet of what I was able to learn from my banishment here under these conditions.  For I believe I can now adequately share with others the many things having a critical self analysis will allow a discerning person to have if that is his quest on this journey.

ir former actions of aggression.

Only after years of maturity, and a lot of soul searching was I able to divest myself from those reasons that led to my downfall.  I hope that each child who now finds himself in the designated category of juvenile lifer will find reasons to begin his own search for inward healing.

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