Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

The United States is the only country in the world that sentences thirteen and fourteen-year old offenders, mostly youth of color, to life in prison without parole, regardless of the scientifically proven singularities of the developing adolescent brain. In 1991, Ian Manuel, then fourteen, was sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide crime. Today, thirty years later, he is neither in prison nor dead. His story has been told many times by highly regarded experts in their field–judges, prosecutors, juvenile probation officers, sociologists, journalists. But he joined us now to share his own story. Contained in his book My Time Will Come: A Memoir of Crime, Punishment, Hope, and Redemption, Manuel offered a powerful testimony of his life. From growing up homeless in Central Park Village in Tampa, a neighborhood riddled with poverty, gang violence, and drug abuse, to his efforts to rise above his own circumstances, he told how he found himself imprisoned for two thirds of his life, eighteen years of wh