Sarah’s story begins far before the day she met the judge who put her in prison for life without the possibility of parole. It begins when she was 11. Sarah was a good student and a typical pre-adolescent but her mother abused drugs and her father wasn’t in the picture. This changed a bit when she met a 31 year old man named G.G. who befriended her and her girlfriends and became the type of father figure that she never had. He was smart and calculating- G.G. would take the girls to do things that young girls like to do, as Sarah remembers he took them rollerskating one day. He slowly and surely gained their confidence and when Sarah was 13, he began to take advantage of her.

At 13 Sarah lost her virginity unwillingly to a 33 year old who very quickly became her pimp. No money that she made was hers, it was all given to G.G. during his work hours; 6 p.m. – 5 a.m.

As you may imagine, this kind of life for a teenage girl is horrifying. Night after night forced to have sex with strange men for money can take a toll on ones life. For some they become drug addicts to try to erase the pain, very few try to run away and some, like Sarah, murder their pimps feeling it’s their only way out. Sarah has never said that she was innocent in the crime of killing G.G. At the age of 16, Sarah Kruzan was shown no mercy and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 13 years later, Sarah is turning 30 and hasn’t seen the outside world since. 

She is aware that what she did was wrong. She knows that she should be punished. And I believe that she has been. She was a 13 year old forced into prostitution and she killed the man who put her there. Taking a life is never o.k., however her life was already taken from her when he riped away her innocence. The judge who sentenced Sarah told her that she “lacked moral scruples”, and naturally at the age of 16, she had no clue what he meant. Now she does, and she would like her chance to prove him wrong. She has been in prison for 13 years and she deserves a parole hearing.

Sarah is not the only one. Currently in the state of California there are over 220 juveniles in prison without the possibility of parole. The state spends approximately $13,000 per person a year to keep them in prison. Don’t you think some of those criminal trials should be revisited? I do.

To be a voice for Teen Trafficking Survivors and to sign a petition to support Sarah’s freedom, please visit this site.

Change.org