9,008 days – In 2016, more than 2,000 adults who were sent as kids to die in prison were given a second chance. Marshan Allen was one of them.
As juvenile defenders prepare for dozens of resentencing hearings throughout Illinois, this Chicago Reader profile reminds us what is at stake: “Allen bears his personal story openly as both cautionary tale and evidence: though people tend to describe what he accomplished while in prison, and since, as exceptional, he views himself as an example. ‘Not the exception, the example,’ he says. He sees thousands of people behind bars whose personal journeys to reform and remorse go unrecognized, people whose potential for creation rather than destruction goes squandered."