With the Supreme Court about to hear oral arguments in two cases that seek to determine if it is constitutional to sentence teenagers to life without the possibility of parole, a new Sentencing Project report gives voice to the 2,500 Americans who are serving such sentences.
The report, The Lives of Juvenile Lifers is drawn from a survey conducted by the Sentencing Project in an attempt to discover if there were underlying factors that contributed to a young person’s crime. The Sentencing Project makes it clear that it is not making excuses for the crimes, but is using the data provided to encourage repairing the system that was designed to help young people, but instead failed them.
Some of the report’s findings include:
Juvenile lifers, especially girls, suffered high rates of abuse—nearly half (46.9%)
of lifers experienced physical abuse, including 79.5 % among girls
Juvenile lifers were exposed to high levels of violence in their homes (79%) and their communities (54.1%)
African American youth constitute 43.4% of life without parole sentences for a murder with a white victim, nearly twice the rate at which they are arrested for such crimes, 23.7%
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