Giving Compass' Take:
- Beth Schwartzapfel reports on conservatives in the Supreme Court issuing a new ruling which could worsen existing racial disparities in states that condemn teens to life in prison.
- What alternatives to incarceration would be more beneficial for teens? How can we approach justice in a restorative rather than punitive manner?
- Read about the negative effect of incarceration on children.
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For years, the Supreme Court sent a consistent message about kids who commit the most serious crimes: They’re still kids. Their bad decisions are often a product of abusive upbringings and still-developing brains. So they can’t be executed. And they can’t get life without parole unless they kill someone — and even then, “all but the rarest of children” deserve a chance at release.
The decisions ushered in a major change: Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have now either banned life without parole for juveniles altogether or have no one serving the sentence. Some states have gone even further, curtailing long prison terms for teens, and providing special protections in other contexts, like parole board hearings.
This month, however, the momentum seemed to change direction.
First, the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority issued a ruling that curtailed the impact of Miller v. Alabama, the court’s 2012 decision restricting life without parole for teenagers. Then, Evan Miller, the man whose name became synonymous with more than a thousand juvenile lifers having a chance to go home, was himself resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“It feels like a one-two punch,” said Ashley Nellis, a research analyst with the Sentencing Project, a think tank that advocates against life sentences. “We’re in a different era.”
Read the full article about the ruling on life without parole for youth by Beth Schwartzapfel at The Marshall Project.