Ask Me Anything: Ethan Crumbley is In My Prison

Spending a long time in prison, you learn to read the way that people walk and move. It becomes both a survival instinct, as well as a product of endless observation. When Ethan goes to the medical unit for physical or mental health treatment, he walks like most teens who are not affiliated with gangs do when they first come to prison: with a naivety and uncertainty. He is clearly scared. As if the fact that he looks younger than his actual age of 17 wasn’t enough, the way he moves gives him away as what we call, in prison lingo, a “fish.”

Out of the back window of my prison job, I watch him walk by nearly every day. He’s escorted by an officer everywhere he goes because he is under 18 (a relatively new development in the prison system). Sometimes the officers talk with him. Sometimes there is a visible tension there. Is it because of natural tension between officers and inmates? Is it due to the lack of anything in common to talk about between a middle-aged staff member and someone who is still a child? Is it because this prison is only a handful of miles away from the crime scene he created?

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COMING TO PRISON UNDER AGE 18

The entire prison, full of over a thousand state prisoners — 10%-20% of whom are serving life sentences for adult crimes just like Ethan Crumbley’s— shut down for the afternoon when Ethan arrived due to his notoriety and attention. His situation was the talk of the prison yard.

One Blood gang member I met talked about how he wanted to smack Ethan, not because of the crimes which put Ethan in prison, but because he could then “call home to my momma and tell her, ‘Guess what I just did to that kid on the news?!'”

Many juvenile lifers, now in their thirties, forties, and fifties, talked about how, if anyone deserved a life sentence as a juvenile it would be a school shooter. But they all felt he should receive treatment instead of prison.

Right now, he is being held in the state of Michigan’s only prison cellblock designated for adult offenders under the age of 18. A high-security prison unit that used to hold some of the state’s most dangerous adults, the small yard behind it is overseen by a guntower and three consecutive rows of razor-wire topped fences. Held in an 8’x12’ cell alone, he has no view of the outside. A number of years ago, a lawsuit by former underage prisoners pressed the law that requires children under 18 in jails and prison to be separated by “sight and sound” from all prisoners over 18, and the prison responded by completely fogging their windows. He is generally kept separate even from the other under-18 prisoners in his unit, kept from the few activities they are allowed to do, such as going to the prison’s library. He is allowed to request books, and the prisoner who has worked as a library clerk for twice as long as Ethan has been alive said he requests “teen fantasy” books. “He’s trying to take his mind out of here,” said the 80-year old clerk who checks out the books to all prisoners.

“He’s never had a chance to do anything in life. His only way to walk through the woods again will be to read about it. The boy won’t ever know what it’s like to touch a woman past reading a description of it. Books are all he’s got.”

— 80-something Library Clerk

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THE FUTURE

The night before his 18th birthday, Ethan will be ordered by prison staff to pack up all of his belongings — his state-issued socks, underwear, and prison uniform, along with the mail he’s received and the small amount of property or commissary he may have been able to purchase. Once he turns 18, coming very soon, he will no longer be allowed to be “housed” in the under 18 prison cellblock. All Michigan prisoners sentenced to more than ten years are classified as “high security,” known as Level IV, for at least their first three years locked up, and so he will spend the morning of his 18th birthday in a prison transport van escorted by two armed officers to one of the state’s Level IV prisons.

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Because of the media coverage of his situation, he will almost certainly be moved to a Protective Custody (or “P.C.”) unit, the main one of which is in the prison town of Ionia, Michigan. This cellblock is where White Boy Rick spent much of his incarceration, and where former officers, judges, and others requiring special consideration are held as well.

Here, or anywhere he ends up, he will be forced to have a cellmate. Though he is in prison for quadruple homicide, his cellmates have little to worry about from him. He may, or may not, have to worry about them. When I looked as young as he does today, I had to fend off sexual predators who view youth as effeminate and target those who appear, in prison lingo, as “boys.” Unrelated to his crimes, he will very likely face sexual harassment merely because on his looks. While it may sound odd to worry about a mass shooter, I pray this teen never has to endure sexual assault, because I know that it is a very real possibility in the life he is about to experience. Ethan may deserve a lot of things, but he does not deserve that.

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MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT

I wonder if Ethan’s parents know that they have a say in the mental health treatment he receives in prison. Despite being sentenced as an adult, parents of Michigan prisoners under 18 have the right to have a say in the treatment their child receives. Despite four life sentences, even in adult prison, Ethan Crumbley is still not yet his own man. I wonder if his parents, who have been convicted of manslaughter in relation to his actions, would care to have a say if they knew.

My assumption is that they wouldn’t. He sought their help when he was still a child who had committed no crime, and they did nothing for him. When he told his parents that he was hearing voices and seeing things that weren’t there, there is evidence that his mother laughed at him before dismissing him. I’m guessing that she is not currently trying to petition the MDOC in order to contribute to the mental health treatment he is currently receiving at Thumb Correctional Facility.

All under-18 prisoners, called “Youthful Offenders,” are seen by mental health workers at the prison upon intake. They are regularly seen specifically because they are under 18 years old. This includes Ethan.

I can’t help but think what would have been different if this could have happened before Ethan Crumbley brought the gun his parents bought him to school. What if a therapist would have seen Ethan Crumbley before his crime, simply because he was under 18? What if every teen was seen by a therapist, simply because they are under 18? What if it would have been easier for a troubled 15-year old to find mental health help for himself regardless of whether his parents were supportive or whether they are the type to mock and laugh at clear signs of childhood psychosis or schizophrenia?

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WHAT HIS CONVICTION MEANS

Ethan Crumbley will never be let out of prison. Many “juvenile lifers” made the news over the past decade after a Supreme Court decision deemed it an injustice to sentence juveniles to life in prison without other options being available to a judge (certain laws formerly gave judges no choice but to automatically sentence every defendant to life upon conviction.) “Discretionary” life sentences, however, where the judge has an opportunity to consider lesser sentences but chooses to sentence the defendant to LIFE, are still allowed. Ethan received four of these. In Michigan, a LIFE sentence means the person will spend their natural life in prison and will die there.

I’ve talked to staff who’ve worked directly with him since arriving here, and they report that he’s mentioned that he regrets what he did and that he wishes he would have had the opportunity to get his mind right before his crime and incarceration.

Ethan’s actions at the end of 2021 got him here. He cannot be let out of prison… it would be an injustice to the victims and their families to do so. But I do not believe that his actions were those of a fully-conscious, self-aware and unadulterated evil. I’ve talked to staff who’ve worked directly with him since arriving here, and they report that he’s mentioned that he regrets what he did and that he wishes he would have had the opportunity to get his mind right before his crime and incarceration. Ethan Crumbley needs to be incarcerated, but I wish there was another option other than condemning him to the same circumstances this society uses to punish the most evil, predatory adults … adults who have fully experienced life in all its possibilities and yet still choose, consciously and with a sound mind, to harm others.

I wish he could receive the help he begged his parents to give him long before he committed his crime.

Because of Ethan’s actions, four families have endured the ultimate tragedy of losing a loved one, and four victims have endured the tragedy of not living to see their futures blossom. Theirs is the truly sad story here. They are heroes, as well as victims. Anyone who would give thought for Ethan should show love for them first.

Ethan’s case should be understood because knowing what happened, and the mistakes made along the way, may help to prevent future tragedies of this sort. What happens to him now speaks to the continued problems of a child with mental illness, as well as on our criminal justice system, parental responsibilities, and how we deal with juvenile mental health.

Ethan Crumbley is going to die in prison, but the real message of his fate might be this: four children might be alive today if Ethan had received, as a free but ignorant high schooler, the same mental health consideration automatically given to all underage convicts upon coming to prison.

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The tragedy that Ethan created for himself: that final year he was free before his crime took place – during which he unsuccessfully begged his parents for help for his mental health – will likely be the best year of his life.

Chris Dankovich #595904

Thumb Corr Facility

3225 John Conley Dr

Lapeer, MI 48446