Should people in prison serving life for crimes committed when they were under 21 get another chance? Some Illinois legislators say yes

CHICAGO -- Antonio House hasn’t known freedom since he was 19, when he was locked up as a suspect in the 1993 kidnappings and killings of two teens on Chicago’s West Side.

While evidence showed House was only a lookout, a judge handed him a sentence of natural life. Destined to die in prison, he was forced to adapt to living without hope of ever again being free. His initial mindset was that he was already dead.

“The first thing you do when you get incarcerated, you start to think … ‘If I was dead, this wouldn’t have happened,’” House, now 48, said in a recent interview in the Cook County Jail. “If you stay in that mind frame, you’ll never exist, you’ll never grow.”

House is among more than 3,000 people in Illinois prisons convicted of crimes committed when they were under 21 and given lengthy sentences, including life in prison without the possibility of parole, also known as natural life, criminal justice reform advocates say. But legislation introduced in the Illinois General Assembly could provide a sliver of light for those behind bars.

The measure would make sentencing reforms that have been passed in recent yearsretroactive for nearly everyone in prison who was convicted ofserious crimes committed when they were teens or young