15-Year Old Travion Blount’s Punishment Harshest For American Teen Who Did Not Commit Murder

Travion Blount, a 15-year old at the time, might be serving the harshest punishment delivered to any American teenager for a crime not involving murder, experts claim. Travion Blount stole cash, cell phones, & pot from a house party in a gang-related crime and originally received 6 life sentences in prison. This was later reduced to 40 years, making him eligible for release at the age of 55.

I am not soft on crime. In fact, I firmly believe in the death penalty for murderers who have been convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. I am for life imprisonment for child abusers and rapists. But there are cases like Travion Blount’s where the punishment simply does not fit the crime.

We have to wonder why rapists and child abusers receive less time and walk free after a significantly reduced sentence only to abuse another victim, but a young, albeit deeply troubled young man like Travion Blount gets 6 life sentences when no shots were fired and no one was hurt as a consequence of his crime? Nor are we race-baiters here. In fact, I often poke fun at politicians who use the “race card” to get away with murder. I am an outspoken opponent of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. But certainly, race and economic conditions must have played a role in this case, for can you imagine a more privileged young man living in a wealthier neighborhood receiving the same harsh sentence as Blount?

Further, one really has to question the incarceration rate in America. The United States has the highest rate in the world. According to Wikipedia: “As of 2009, the incarceration rate was 743 per 100,000 of national population (0.743%). While the United States represents about 5 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Imprisonment of America’s 2.3 million prisoners, costing $24,000 per inmate per year, and $5.1 billion in new prison construction, consumes $60.3 billion in budget expenditures”.

Could any of this have to do with the “war on drugs”? Consider that “in the twenty-five years since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the United States penal population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million. Between 1986 and 1991, African-American women’s incarceration in state prisons for drug offenses increased by 828 percent” (Wikipedia).

Read more about Travion Blount’s case: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/life-times-six-how-travion-blount-got-118-years-and-6-life-sentences-robbery

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Tags: criminals

Category: Government Corruption