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TRIBUNE: Juvenile sentencing reform becomes rallying cry

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 12:00 am

Nathaniel Lee Tribune Correspondent

Members of the West Philadelphia-based Human Rights Coalition joined with the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration for what was dubbed a Mother’s Day rally that called for the restoration of communities and juvenile sentencing reforms.

The May 6 rally was scheduled to take place outside City Hall but inclement weather forced the event to be held inside the Arch Street Methodist Church, 55 N. Broad St.

BILLY PENN: The hardest holiday: Mother’s Day for Philly moms with kids in prison

By Anna Orso
May 7, 2016

Lorraine Haw has received three Mother’s Day cards in the last three days, all from the same place: the State Correctional Institution at Smithfield.

It’s at the state prison four hours away in the Allegheny Mountains where her son, Phillip Ocampo, is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole on second degree murder charges stemming from a 1995 burglary gone wrong. Ocampo was 19 when he was arrested. He’s now 41.

NEWSWORKS: Seeking compassion for those sentenced as youths to life without parole

Families of inmates sentenced to life terms when they were juveniles gathered Friday to ask Pennsylvania lawmakers to eliminate life-without-parole as a form of punishment.

Kimberly King was one  of those calling for compassion during a rally in Philadelphia.

Telling her story to dozens assembled at the Arch Street United Methodist Church, King said the number 22 has special meaning — her older brother was 22 when he was sentenced to life in prison, and her little brother was murdered at 22.

DAILY NEWS: As city jail deaths rise, will reforms help?

DANA DiFILIPPO, Daily News Staff Writer 
Posted: Tuesday, November 3, 2015, 12:16 AM

JAMELLA PARKS had been hooked on drugs for nearly three decades before she tried to sneak $68.52 worth of toiletries out of a Logan Rite Aid in January.

It was far from her first arrest: Her record is riddled with crimes, mostly misdemeanors like prostitution and shoplifting, she committed to feed an addiction she couldn't shake.

This time, though, the arrest would be her death sentence.

DAILY NEWS: In search of Philly's 'missing' black men

WILL BUNCH, Daily News Staff Writer 
Monday, July 13, 2015, 12:16 AM

THE NUMBERS that drive Philadelphia prison-reform advocate Patricia Vickers on her mission aren't the big abstract ones.

Not 36,000, the shocking recent estimate of young black men in Philadelphia either behind bars or dead before their time.

Not 1,500,000, the national tally of what academics now call "missing black men."

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