Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15)

In 1985, at age 15, Paula Cooper fatally stabbed 78-year-old Ruth Pelke in Gary. In 1986, she was sentenced to death, but three years later, her sentence was reduced to 60 years in prison. She is eligible for parole in 2015.

Recently, Cooper reflected on her experiences in prison, first as an angry juvenile on Death Row and later as a hard-working prisoner, and the impact that the death sentence had on her as a teenager.

The crime for which Cooper was sentenced outraged the public. Mrs. Pelke was a neighborhood Bible teacher when Cooper and three girlfriends robbed and stabbed her 33 times. Still, the death sentence surprised Cooper.

"I was mostly shocked because when my judge sentenced me, he gave me the impression he wasn't gonna give it to me," said Cooper, now 35, who spoke with Y-Press at Rockville Correctional Facility, the minimum-security facility where she is being held.

"I mean, it really didn't set in until I actually got to prison, which was days later."

The sentence ultimately received international attention. While Cooper spent the rest of her adolescence on Death Row at the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis, human-rights activists -- including Pelke's grandson, Bill Pelke -- tried to reduce Cooper's sentence by making public appeals in the United States as well as in Europe, winning the support of Pope John Paul II.

In 1989, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Cooper's sentence after the Indiana legislature changed the law, limiting the death penalty to people at least 16 years old when their crime was committed.

But other juveniles have not been so lucky. Since 1976, 22 people -- though none in Indiana -- have been executed for crimes committed as juveniles.

In 2002, Indiana barred death-penalty consideration for youth who are under age 18 when they commit a capital offense.

According to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, 74 juveniles were on Death Row in 2003 in adult facilities in the United States. Fourteen states allow the death penalty for juveniles ages 16 and above; five allow it at age 17.

How effective is it?

But is capital punishment an effective deterrent for juveniles? Proponents of the death penalty argue age does not matter when it comes to perpetrators of violent crime. Opponents say young people don't have the same mental faculties as adults, and that the death penalty is ineffective in reducing violent crime.

"There is some evidence that it has been implemented arbitrarily and capriciously, and also some innocent people have in fact been executed," said Ira Schwartz, Temple University provost and law professor who has researched juvenile justice extensively.

"The adult criminal justice system is entirely inappropriate for young people," he said.

"I don't think that juveniles ought to be tried as adults and bound over to the adult courts and placed on Death Row. I just don't think that that's an effective strategy. You know, there's not much evidence that such behavior would work or would serve as a deterrent."

Cooper agreed the death penalty is not appropriate for children.

"I think that it's a revenge sentence. I think that people should serve time to realize what they've done, even if you have to spend the rest of your life in prison."

According the American Bar Association, 60 percent of youth currently on Death Row had been abused or neglected.

"Clearly, young people who have troubled histories are far more likely to act out, to be delinquent, to commit crimes. There's no question about that, particularly if they have been juveniles who have had a history of prior out-of-home placements in their childhood," Schwartz said.

Cooper fits this profile. She was abused as a child, used drugs and alcohol and had an unstable family life. "Part of my growing up, I had a single parent home. Part of it, my mother and father were married, and there was a lot of fighting in the house, abuse and alcoholism."

Also, children don't have the same mental capability, Schwartz said.

"A study was done here at Temple University that shows that young people who are under the age of 16, even when rights are read to them, don't understand the significance of waiving their right to counsel." This, he said, "shows that young people still do not have all the faculties that adults do and should receive special protections."

Cooper's experience bears this out. She was confused during the trial and still angry and violent after her sentencing.

"I didn't even know (the judge) had given (the death sentence) to me until after I turned around and looked at my attorney and then looked back at the judge, and he was gone," she said. "And I asked my attorney what did he say, and he said he gave me the death penalty."

Cooper spent three years in solitary confinement after attacking a guard.

"I was very bitter and angry, so I was in a lot of trouble," she said. "I hated it. But I learned to adapt eventually."

As she matured, Cooper started to take advantage of opportunities at the prison. "I decided for myself it was time to really sit down and buckle down and get it because it wasn't gonna always be there. I went to school, and I got my GED. I started college correspondence, and I just kept busy. I was very hopeful. I never believed the sentence would be carried out, so it wasn't something that I pondered over day and night," she said.

While Cooper has reconciled herself to long years in prison, Schwartz says such long terms are not effective in rehabilitating juvenile offenders.

"The results on the follow-up studies on juveniles who've been incarcerated are not very promising, particularly juveniles who've been confined for long periods of time," he said. "The data that we've got shows that juveniles who commit serious violent crimes, while they may need to be confined for public protection, those periods of confinement should be for relatively short periods of time, as short as possible. And then they ought to be reintegrated back into the community as quickly as possible."

Stop trouble early

Instead, Schwartz says, the key to curbing juvenile crime is to improve the child welfare system. He recommends a three-pronged approach: "First of all, we've got to do a much better job providing services to troubled young people early on, and far earlier than the time at which they reach their teen years. Also, particularly for abused and neglected children, they need to be in stable environments. One of the problems with the foster care system with children who are abused is that they get moved around and bounced around from one foster home to another."

Finally, more services need to be available to youth in prison, he said. "We need to equip the juvenile correctional system with the resources that it needs to provide better services to these young people because the adult criminal-justice system is basically warehousing."

Cooper supports early help for troubled youth. "When kids are going in and out of juvenile centers, going in and out of boys' and girls' schools, that's when they need to really start working with them. I mean, I had been in juvenile detention over 10 times, and nobody ever did anything for me. I believe that everybody incarcerated needs therapy.

"Adults don't understand kids sometimes," she continued. "They don't understand that when kids start getting in a life of crime and doing things, they're crying out for help."

For Cooper, all the pain and suffering of adolescence led to wisdom. In 2001, she received a bachelor's degree in humanities from Martin University, and she is now helping train dogs as companions for the disabled.

As an adult who has spent more time inside than out, she gives advice to all juveniles in trouble: "Everybody has a responsibility to do right or wrong, and if you do wrong, you should be punished. Rehabilitation comes from you. If you're not ready to be rehabilitated, you won't be."

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Julie McDowell, 16; Morgan McMillan, 17.

REPORTER: Riley Walker, 12.

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