All Deval Patrick wants to do is reward criminals and illegal immigrants and make law abiding Massachusetts residents foot the bill. If you break the law you should serve your time period. If you're an illegal immigrant you do not get state benefits period, why are these concepts so foreign to him?

How about we leave murderers locked up regardless of age, and lay off some of the more minor offenses that are clogging up the system?

Also...can we be more clear on the title of the question..."fairer"? Life in prison is :fair" for murder, regardless of age. "Earlier parole" or any parole is not quite the same wording.

I am all for fair sentencing- harsher penalties for violent criminals sounds plenty fair to me.

Murder is murder! If you are old enough to do the crime your old enough to do the time!

All killers keep on killing,so leave them there! Like at all the repeaters!

Teens between the ages of 14 - 17 know damn well that killing someone is wrong. And these days, these kids know exactly what can kill and what doesn't kill. It's bad enough we already have so many teens that could easily fit the "Jefrrey Dahmer" type based on all the animal torture cases we are hearing about on the news. That type of behavior should be a huge indication to people of what those individuals are going to become as adults.

Sounds like the governor is just being proactive. SCOTUS ruled that mandatory life sentences with no possibility of parole for those who were under 18 when they committed the crime were unconstitutional. What's the big deal?

Him withou sin let him throw the first stone. I believe we all can be a murderer depending on the circumstance. Age matters, maturity matters, understanding of the consequences matters. We all did lots of stupid things when we were you. Some people are sooo judgemental, but if the shoe was on the other feet, or if it were your immature son or daughter will you feel the same way. In the amount you judge you will also be judged...

Paul I was speaking about giving illegal immigrants licenses and in state tuition without doing much to earn it. And if you'd like a 15 year old convicted murderer back on the streets then good luck with that. Lets now release murderers and make it harder for law abiding citizens to obtain firearms, seems like a great plan.

I do not believe that a young teenager should spend the rest of their lives in prison but I also do not believe that they should just be thrown back out on the streets without any rehabilitation or help reintegrating with society.

So you looked at the details from the 62 cases Avon? Because that's quite an assumption to make that guns were involved in these murders.

When your child is murdered, you will feel different. Murder is murder!! IM sorry IM for justice for the victim.

I think we are to easy on our children today. If they can kill at any age then they should be treated just like everyone else that kills. If they can
pull a Trigger, stab, or any other means take a life dont treat them as poor little children. They are aware of what they did and why.

How about the abortion.is a killing too. thats very bad killing babies.

Imilda, completely different topic not related to this story.

Avon why are you even posting if you don't base yoir comments on anything and you post "throwaway lines"? Are you that bored that you consciously feel the need to add input that you yourself don't even value or put any thought or effort into?

If they murder do a public hanging that would save money too...

It's sad how this country cares more about money than justice.

whoever is between ages 13 n up. should know what's good or bad. If you the parents haven't taught you child about the good or wat is bad. Is your fault he or she took another life. Letting them out early is like saying sure it's ok kid don't kill next time.killers should be kept lock. No buts or excuses. Stop being soft and bring justice. We need it now more than ever.

You do an adult crime you can do adult time. What gives a 15 year old the right to possibly get his life and freedom back when he has taken another's?

How about no? Dead is dead. Victims aren't any less dead because the killer was a "child".

Ridiculous how stupid this country is. We treat our teenagers like toddlers despite the very real and well documented evidence that at around 14-15 their adult biology is settling in. Puberty happens 12-13ish for most, there is a reason.

We have to stop ignoring what humans are and how we work because of some bullpucky desire to keep our kids...kids. Doesn't work that way.

We have kids with adult desires, thoughts, responsibilities (to a limited extent of course) and bodies and we haven't given them the tools and instructions needed to handle all that crap.

There will always be kids who are monstrously defective. No matter, what they are going to end up worthless, in jail or dead. I firmly believe if you acknowledge right out of the gate that your child is his own person from day 1 and you begin teaching him to make choices that are age appropriate from toddlerhood up to the teen years we will have less of this crap.

Two comments have been deleted. Please keep discussion on here civil.

A “fairer Justice system” would be to have these first degree killers, rapists, gang members etc, live with the Judges, Lawyers and the Governor who say it’s perfectly fine to release them back to your neighborhood and into society. They can pay for their sex changes too.

Only if our system becomes more rehabilatative than punitive including better recognition of mental illness which can rear it's ugly head only in the late teens and early 20s.

Yet people who spew their "intellectual drivel" are smarter than the rest of us are complete
ly useless in the real world

I'm not at all surprised by this proposal from Deval because this is the type of stuff liberals do. Early parole should be on a case-by-cases bases. You think those teenage kids in New Hampshire who hacked to death that mother with a machete as she shielded her severly injured 10 year old daughter deserve early parole? This state made a HUGE mistake by not electing Charlie Baker.

wow, the minds (If I can call them that) are really closed today. The assumptions behind some of these comments are nasty and barbaric. Hello, folks, it's 2013. We know a lot about the human mind, how it works, how to get it regulated, how to help people control their behaviors.
The fact is most who serve their sentence get out. Do you want someone next to you who endured the barbarism of the prisons of the 1800s and early 1900s? Because as YOU sow, so shall you reap.
If you read the article, Patrick is proposing more effective ways to deal with people while they are in. So stop hyperventilating and venting and start thinking. For once.

Yes, Gretchen, it is 2013. But to insist they "know a lot about the human mind, how it works, how to get it regulated, how to help people control their behaviors" is debatable....on many levels. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they don't know much more than they did in 1913.

As is the case throughout history: THEY know just enough to be dangerous, and WE are ignorant enough to trust in them.

Coincidentally I was reading an article yesterday about a defense attorney in Vegas. She has a very interesting perspective and opinion on this coming from the front lines of a court system... www.theveldgroup.com/www/Las%20Vegas%20Life%20Article.pdf

Speaking of Las Vegas, there is the media-clip from Inside Edition's Jim Moret: "People Live in the Sewer Tunnels Beneath Las Vegas" at:

http://www.AOL.com/video/people-live-in-the-sewer-tunnels-beneath-las-vegas/517657183/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cd129%7Csec3_Ink2%26pLid%3D264100

Where is the evidence to support the governor's rationale for "fairer" sentences?
There isn't any.