The Reckoning Over Young Prisoners Serving Life Without Parole
It’s been more than seven years since the U.S. Supreme Court began to chip away at life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders, and lower courts are still wrestling with how to apply the justices’ logic to the American criminal-justice system.
Life sentences are an American institution. According to a recent Sentencing Project report, more than 200,000 people are serving either life in prison or a “virtual” life sentence: They haven’t been explicitly sentenced to spend their natural lives behind bars, but their prison terms extend beyond a typical human lifespan. Of these prisoners, thousands were sentenced as juveniles. More than 2,300 are serving life without parole, often abbreviated LWOP, and another 7,300 have virtual life sentences. Only after they serve decades in prison do members of the latter group typically become eligible for parole.
Where these young people are is highly concentrated: The Sentencing Project found California, Georgia, Texas, and New York account for 63 percent of them. Other states have abandoned the practice altogether. At least 17 now prohibit LWOP sentences for juveniles in all circumstances, according to a recent tally by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
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