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.

09/07/2012

Seeking a Second Chance: Children Sentenced to Life Without Parole Seek Justice Before International Tribunal

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program & Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 12:47pm

By her thirteenth birthday, Barbara Hernandez had lived with an abusive, alcoholic father and been molested by her mother’s second husband. At fifteen, Barbara dropped out of school and moved in with her boyfriend James, who beat her and coerced her into prostitution. Barbara’s life with James had taught her that she had two choices: obey him or face physical abuse. So when James instructed her to buy him a knife and lure a man into their home, Barbara obeyed. While she was in another room, James stabbed the man to death. Despite Barbara’s youth, troubled background, and the fact that she did not physically commit the crime, Barbara was tried as if she were an adult and received the harshest sentence possible in the State of Michigan, life without the possibility of parole. She was just sixteen, and about to spend the rest of her life in prison. In Barbara’s words, she was sentenced to a “long slow death.”

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!

09/26/2012

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Gingrich Argues States Should Abandon Life Imprisonment without Parole for Juveniles

By Brandon Buskey, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 10:16am

Prominent conservative leaders Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan penned a forceful editorial last week in the San Diego Union-Tribune advocating that states such as California abandon the draconian practice of sentencing children to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. While professing their continued commitment to conservative values, Gingrich and Nolan assail criminal laws that fail to recognize the inherent differences between children and adults and thus destroy all hope for youth who may one day deserve the opportunity to rejoin society. Sentencing children to spend the rest of their lives in prison, they assert, represents “an overuse of incarceration.”

10/01/2012

Juvenile Life Without Parole

California Gives Hope to Child Offenders Sentenced to Die in Prison

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 6:43pm

Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s Senate Bill 9, the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, giving California youth sentenced to die in prison a second chance at life. There are 309 child offenders serving life-without-parole sentences in California for murders committed when they were younger than 18. The bill, known as SB 9, gives these individuals the chance to earn parole after serving at least 25 years in prison. It allows juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole to petition the sentencing court to review their cases after 15 years and reduce their sentence to 25 years-to-life if they show remorse and are taking steps toward rehabilitation.

06/25/2012

Juvenile Life Without Parole

ACLU Lens: Supreme Court Rules Against Mandatory Life Without Parole for Children

By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:56pm

A message for Alabama, Arkansas, and the entire United States: a sentencing scheme of mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders (JLWOP) is cruel and unusual punishment. That’s what the Supreme Court said today when it ruled in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs that such sentencing schemes violate the Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

04/03/2013

Juvenile Detention

New Pope Washes the Feet of 12 Kids in Prison: An Easter Reminder for the U.S.

By Ajmel Quereshi, Staff Counsel, ACLU at 10:34am

Last week, while Christians around the world were preparing to celebrate Easter, the newly elected Pope Francis visited Casal Del Marmo...

03/23/2012

This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (3/23/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 5:39pm

Some employers are asking job applicants for their passwords to which social networking site?

Which court ruled that a law that protects pregnant workers is unenforceable?

Which country is the only one in the world that sentences children to life without parole?

What government agency continues to defend warrantless wiretapping?

How could a shooter claim self-defense after killing an unarmed teenager in Florida?

05/11/2012

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Out of Step With the World: Juvenile Life Without Parole in the United States

By Steven Watt, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 5:02pm

In the United States, there are over 3,000 people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for offenses committed when they were children. Among them is Matthew Bentley from Michigan who committed his crime when he was 14 years-old, an age when the law deemed him too young to legally drive, smoke or join the military but old enough to be sentenced to die in prison,

03/20/2012

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Podcast: Irredeemable at 14?

By Dan Korobkin, ACLU of Michigan at 2:26pm

Matthew Bentley was a teenager when he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Hear his story in a new podcast.

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.

American Civil Liberties Union