Preface: Colorado Model of Criminal Defense-Based Forensic Social Work

In the fall of 2012, I, Ashley Ratliff, JD, MSW, met a young man, a barely 18-year-old, frail teenager who was in the medical unit of the local jail. His anxiety was palpable. Immediately, I knew that it was going to take a longer visit than planned to fully explain to him the first-degree murder charges he faced from a situation that had occurred when he was 17 and the possible penalty of spending his life in prison. His first question to me was “When can I go back to high school?” His focus on this goal was incredibly naïve but persistent and honorable. It took several visits to help him understand his charges and the potential impact to his future, resulting from one evening when he almost died during a fistfight-turned-gunfight among four juveniles. Shortly before this meeting, I had also been appointed to represent a different young man who had been sentenced to life in prison for violent offenses that had occurred in the late 1990s; because of significant changes in constitutional law regarding cruel and unusual punishments for juveniles, his case was going to get a second look in the courts. This individual was so anxious about his circumstances that he would be physically ill prior to my visiting with him. My commitment to representing the legal needs of these two young men brought about feelings of gratitude for my Master of Social Work (MSW) degree and my ability to recognize the need for a comprehensive, client-centered team approach that would allow me to better represent each young person as more than their criminal behaviors. This professional team approach would hopefully lead to effective advocacy for these deserving individuals and others facing serious criminal charges and consequences or those who were told they would die in prison for crimes they had committed as children. The latter group of incarcerated offenders, convicted and sentenced to Juvenile Life in Prison Without Parole (JLWOP) for crimes committed when they were juveniles, were now facing the possibility of returning to their families and communities, and their legal teams were tasked with showing the Court and other decision-makers how their reentry could be successful and safe.