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"Teens locked up for life without a second chance"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this new extended CNN piece focused on juve LWOP sentences.   Here are snippets: [There are at] least 73 U.S. inmates ? most of them minorities ? who were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Alabama that defends indigent defendants and prisoners. The 73 are just a fraction of the more than 2,000 offenders serving life sentences for crimes they committed as minors under the age of 18.... Numerous studies have shown that in the 1970s and 1980s, minors were rarely given life sentences, let alone life without parole, experts said. By the early 1990s, according to the Department of Justice, an alarming spike in juvenile homicides spawned a nationwide crackdown, including a movement to try kids in adult courts...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 08, 2009 (boomark / email).