Only 13 out of 28 states have complied with a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to abolish mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles, a report released this week by the Sentencing Project finds.
A majority of states have done nothing to pursue statutory reform, while others use loopholes to continue sentencing minors to long-term punishments, the report says. Overall, a total of 44 states still have the option to sentence people to life in prison for crimes they committed as children.
These excessively heavy prison terms are also a complicated factor in a racially disparate judicial system; according to the Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice Fairness and Equity, a disproportionate amount of black, Native American, and Hispanic youth face higher chances of incarceration as white youth.
Josh Rovner, who authored the SP report, notes national data showing that black minors are five times more likely than white minors to be arrested for curfew violations — a statistic that does not accurately reflect rates of crimes being committed across those same racial lines.
“The data we have and our own experience shows that teenagers are not behaving any differently,” Rovner said. “It’s arrest rates that are different.”
The precedent set by the Supreme Court in 2012 was meant to enact sweeping changes in sentencing processes. Citing the “principle of proportionality,” the decision stated that mandatory life sentences without parole for defendants under the age of 18 violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. It built on a previous ruling that struck down life sentences for non-homicide offenses and required juries to give consideration to mitigating factors such as mental development and potential for rehabilitation.
Yet more than half of the states that allow mandatory life sentences for minors have made no effort to repeal their laws, while several of those that complied with the ruling simply reduced the required minimums to several decades. Still others technically abide by the ruling by allowing life without parole as an option rather than as a mandate.
“To sentence young people into their elderly years amounts to a determination that some offenders lack the capacity to change, which violates the spirit, if not the letter, of both Supreme Court rulings,” the SP report says.
A University of Texas study found that juveniles waiting to be tried as adults are often held in county jails, where they are denied access to services and programming that they may be legally required to receive.
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