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Locking Up Kids for Life

By standdown

That's the title of an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times.  LINKCalifornia is paying a heavy price for its get-tough-on-crime attitude, with an underfunded and overcrowded prison system, the nation's worst recidivism rate and a rotten international image as the state with the highest death row population. But of all the inequities of a dysfunctional penal system and harsh state laws, few can touch our predilection for discarding the lives of children who commit crimes before they're old enough to fully understand the consequences of their actions. Sentencing youths under 18 to life without the possibility of parole is a violation of international law that has been banned in nearly every country in the world except this one. A recent report by Human Rights Watch identified just seven people outside the United States who have been subjected to this cruel and unusual punishment -- but it found 227 in California, which leads the nation in juvenile injustice...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on January 16, 2008 (boomark / email).