Juvenile Life Without Parole

In the United States each year, children as young as 13 are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison without any opportunity for release. Approximately 2,570 children are sentenced to juvenile life without parole or "JLWOP" in the United States. Despite a global consensus that children cannot be held to the same standards of responsibility as adults and recognition that children are entitled to special protection and treatment, the United States allows children to be treated and punished as adults.

03/15/2012

Throwaway Kids?

By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:41pm

Next week the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in two historic cases. Incredibly, the cases — from Alabama, Miller v. Alabama, and Arkansas, Jackson v. Hobbs — concern the practice, unique to the United States, of imprisoning teenagers for the rest of their natural lives for crimes committed while they were still developing into adulthood. The U.S. stands utterly alone on this one — no other country in the world locks up its children for crimes committed before they could legally drive, join the military, vote or sometimes even get married.

08/19/2011

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Life Without a Chance

By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 2:06pm

We as a nation need to stop throwing away our children. Kids are still maturing and developing — as I like to say, they are not done yet. As a result, society treats kids and adults differently in a wide array of contexts: kids cannot drive, sit on juries, enter contracts, join the military, smoke, drink, marry or hold political office. Yet we lock them up and literally throw away the key. Making matters worse, we condemn black youth forever at 18 times the rate of white youth and Latino youth at five times the rate of whites.

06/22/2011

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Lift Children Out of the Criminal Justice System – Don't Lock Them Away

By Ezekiel Edwards, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project & Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 5:17pm

What kind of person looks into the face of a child and sees no hope? What kind of society locks up children as if they were adults — and sometimes even throws away the key? Unfortunately, ours does. As a case in point, Kansas City prosecutors are currently mulling over whether to charge a five-year-old child for the murder of an 18-month old. Just think — murder charges for a little girl who has not yet even entered first grade!

11/20/2009

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Expanding Opportunity and Hope for Children in America

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 3:17pm

(Originally posted in Daily Kos.)

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most comprehensive treaty on children’s rights. The convention has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, except for the United States. The convention would fill current gaps in U.S. laws, and provide all children in America with the same robust protections that children in 193 countries are already entitled to.

06/09/2009

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Let's End Juvenile Life Sentences Without Parole Now!

By Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program at 11:55am

Today at 3:00 pm, the U.S. House of Representative's Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security will convene a hearing on H.R. 2289, the "Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009.” This legislation would deny funding to states that refuse to offer a parole option to juvenile offenders and authorize state grants to improve legal representation for youths charged with life sentences.

American Civil Liberties Union