In 1996 Mr. Leung Yiu Chung, a legislative councilor in Hong Kong, received a letter from 23 prisoners serving indefinite sentences for crimes committed in their youth. These sentences, known as "at Her Majesty's pleasure" are the equivalent of life without parole sentences - these youth had no opportunity for release except for a very rarely granted pardon from the Queen. After organizing the families of those serving and gathering the support of over 2000 people in Hong Kong, legislation was introduced and passed which allowed all of these young people an opportunity to earn their release. As of 2003, all 23 have been released. Herman Yau directed a movie about this struggle entitled, "From the Queen to the Chief Executive".This movie, based on a book by the same name (cover featured below), was the official selection of the Berlin Film Festival. Despite critical acclaim, this movie was banned in China because it was determined to "lack creative merit". The cover of the book was designed by the 23 prisoners and details their political struggle.
What struck us about this story are the similarities to the battle currently being fought in Louisiana. In 2006, a young man incarcerated for 40 years in a Louisiana prison wrote a piece of legislation to end life without parole sentencing for youth. He sent this legislation to his mother and his mother passed it along to one of her sorority sisters - who also happened to be a State Representative. Although 5 years later the legislation has yet to pass, during this time over 300 family members and friends of the youth incarcerated for life in Louisiana have organized and educated themselves about how to effectively advocate for their loved ones. They have built a coalition of dozens of organizations and are now a part of a national coalition of over a dozens states and hundreds of friends and family members of the incarcerated from across the country dedicated to ending this inhumane practice.
