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EVIDENCE-BASED SENTENCTING >> Juvenile Life Without Parole
Campaign Brief:
Ending Juvenile Life Without Parole
:: campaign overview ::
Background
Mandatory juvenile life without parole was a legal sentence in the U.S. until the Supreme Court began reevaluating the practice. In 2012, the Court ruled it is unconstitutional to subject children to a mandatory life without parole sentence, though such a sentence may be handed out at a judge’s discretion based on factors outlined in its 2012 Miller decision. Then, in 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that prior decision should be applied retroactively. That gave everyone serving a juvenile life without parole sentence at that time the right to be resentenced under the Miller standard.
Since then, many things have happened. Many of the more than 2,600 juvenile lifers then incarcerated have since been resentenced. Of them, more than 1,100 have been released to go home. Given the chance to re-impose the life without parole sentence, judges overwhelmingly decline — nationally, just 3.2 percent of juvenile lifers are resentenced to life without parole at resentencing, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. And once they come home, they are likely to stay home. As of December 2024, Michigan’s former juvenile lifers have a recidivism rate of less than 3 percent, compared to the overall recidivism rate of 22.7 percent within three years for those released from the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Recognizing these facts, more than half of the states in the US have joined the rest of the world in banning the use of juvenile life without parole sentencing. Michigan has not.
Vision
Solution
Children who have committed harm present a dilemma at sentencing. Current evidence-based research tells us that children simply don’t have the same reasoning skills as adults. The prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for decision making and impulse control — isn’t fully developed until a person is 25 years old. While all people must be held accountable for their actions, no one wants to see the potential of a young life wasted.
Rather than sending our children away to die in prison, we propose a juvenile can be sentenced to no more than 60 years in prison. In addition, they should become eligible for parole after serving 20 years. At that point, the parole board — who we already trust to evaluate and make parole decisions about incarcerated people — should use their discretion to decide whether a juvenile lifer has grown and matured to the point that they are suitable for release. As the hundreds of former juvenile lifers who have already come home have shown us, they can safely return home and become valued members of our communities.
