I sometimes go to colleges and speak to students who are learning law, criminology, and stuff like this, and you know, they often come up to me and say, “Life is 15 years, eh?” They really believe, these educated children, that life is 15 years. What kind of message are we sending out there?
When I was a little girl—I remember that I was about ten years old—my mother was reading the newspaper, and she said that Mr. so-and-so was being hanged tomorrow. We were 12 children at home. We all gathered around the kitchen table and said, “Oh my God, do they really hang people?” She said, “Yes, they do.”
That scared us so badly, and we were eight, nine, seven. You know, we always thought that if we ever committed any serious crimes, we'd be hanged too. It stayed right there. But today the kids say, “Oh, it's 15 years, eh?” What kind of message are we sending out there?