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Should Teenagers be Sentenced to Life Imprisonment?

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether its constitutional to sentence juveniles to prison for life, for crimes less than murder.  Scott Greenfield thinks that constitutional issues aside:LWOP for kids at all, no less for crimes short of murder, is just nuts. Absurd overkill is not something that any rational, reasonable legislature should ever enact. And yet they do, even though there's no empirical evidence to show that it makes any sense at all.  The problem is that states that have approved of the sentence of LWOP argue their emotional justification, the super-predator fallacy, the harm to victims, the crime wave, the need to stop these children. What's the point of sending people to prison at all?  To me, it seems that you send people to prison for violating the social contract...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on November 09, 2009 (boomark / email).