When he first inspected the gloomy Oklahoma State Penitentiary twenty-seven years ago, Attorney W. Lee Johnson was powerfully impressed by the consequences of crime. If he ever became a judge, he told his friends, he would try reforming young troublemakers by showing them the prison. Last week, after four months as judge of the district court in Tulsa, Johnson decided that he had a likely prospect for his theory of crime therapy: a pallid stickup man named Jim Kimbrell.
Kimbrell, a 19-year-old first offender, had pleaded guilty to holding up a television technician at gun's point. The judge gave him...
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