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Assailing LWOP for juvenile offenders

By Douglas A. Berman

This new paper appearing on SSRN, titled "Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice," takes aim at the sentencing of juvenile offenders to life imprisonment without parole.  Here is the abstract: This article focuses on the sentencing of child offenders (those convicted of crimes when younger than eighteen years of age) to a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole ("LWOP"). It argues that the LWOP sentence condemns a child to die in prison, is cruel and ineffective as a punishment, has no deterrent value, contradicts our modern understanding that children have enormous potential for growth and maturity in passing from youth to adulthood, prevents society from ever reconsidering a child's sentence, and denies the widely held expert view that children are amenable to rehabilitation and redemption...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 06, 2008 (boomark / email).