CRIME: Youth-Saving Plan

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 a five-year sentence, but added that he would consider probation after the youth spent 24 hours visiting the prison.

Everyone involved cooperated with Judge Johnson's idea. Said Warden Jerome Waters, as he shut Kimbrell in a cell: "You will have plenty of time to meditate. Get on your knees and pray!" Kimbrell replied, with tears in his eyes: "Please God, make me a man from now on." He was marched to meals with other prisoners. He was asked to sit, experimentally, in the electric chair, did so, and said: "It made my flesh crawl." He was introduced to one Carl De Wolf, soon to be electrocuted for shooting a Tulsa detective. De Wolf rose to the occasion too, and said: "I was just a punk like you when I first got into trouble."

After 24 hours, Kimbrell was brought back to Tulsa's county jail. Said he: "I want to get down on my knees in front of my mother and tell her she was always right when she kept after me to be the right kind of a boy. I've learned my lesson. I'm going to ask God to help me live a better life."

Satisfied, Johnson put him on probation, but not without indicating that hell would probably have no fury like a judge whose favorite youth-saving plan blew up in his face. "The public," he said, "is going to want to know what happens to Kimbrell."