Life Sentencing Juveniles

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Juvenile’s Subject to Life Sentences Imagine being in a confined concrete room, metal bars, the feeling of a caged animal with hours, days, months, even years going by, and nothing to do. This is the feeling that juveniles have when being stuck in prison with a life sentence, going years without seeing their family because of a crime they committed at a young age. It’s the price that must be paid when committing horrendous crimes. Even at such a young age, there must be a crucial punishment rightfully given to avoid things happening in the future and keep the safety of our country and citizens. This further adds to the question: Why is there so much debate about juvenile punishments, and whether they should be subject to life sentences? There …show more content…
The 8th Amendment is important in understanding a child's right to no cruel or unusual punishment and excessive fines (Colb). The history of Roper vs Simmons is important because it brings the debate about life sentences for juveniles to the surface. Many penalties have been rewritten for juveniles, along with getting rid of sentencing juveniles to life without parole (JLWOP). Around 33 states follow these new laws and ban them completely (Rovner). States that do allow juveniles to be sentenced to life, mostly follow the sentences of 15 - 40 years in prison (Rovner). When looking at the statistics of juvenile crimes “Between 1980 and 2005, 43,621 juveniles were arrested for murder in the United States. This picture is just bleak with respect to arrests for rape (109,563), robbery (818,278), and aggravated assault (1,240,199).” (Stimson and Grossman). This data and history also bring in ethics and values that judges must look at when sentencing a child for such amounts of …show more content…
When looking into the actions of juveniles, many supporters say that the home life a child grew up in is a major factor. Children sentenced to life often grew up in abusive households like Evan Miller who committed a crime at the age of 14, however, his home life was very unstable and by the age of 6, he had 4 failed suicide attempts. His mother was addicted to cocaine, had shot someone, and had been sent to jail (Rovner). The homelife and role models around young children play a big role in their ability to make decisions because they learn this behavior by modeling the ones around them. A recent study on children’s brains shows they fail to realize the consequences of their actions and impair judgment. Supporters will add that youth have disadvantages when defending their cases because of the way their developing brains respond to the pressure of interrogation (Rovner). With this new research, some scientists will add to the argument that juveniles under the age of 18 are at a biological disadvantage when making decisions that will affect them long term, even when acknowledging their
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