Youth Sentencing Law
July 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Juvenile Justice
In this video Sara talks about being sent to prison for life for killing her pimp when she was 16-years old.
HT: Fair Sentencing for Youth via Fuller Youth Institute
What say you? Is it right to sentence a juvenile to life without the possibility of parole?
Alex on Fri, 10th Jul 2009 12:31 pm
It depends on the case. Especially in this case, it sounds like it was practically self-defense–maybe not directly, but she had been abused for 5 years by the person that she ultimately killed. This would be a case where even if she had met the guy at 18 and he abused her for 5 years and she couldn't take it anymore and killed him when she was 23, I would say that she should get 15-20 years at most. But in very rare cases (like random killing or a serial killer who is also raping his victims), maybe a life sentence should be an option.
One of the problems is that in many states, people who are sentenced as juveniles must be released when they turn 25, no exceptions. Even if the staff evaluates them and believes they are likely to offend again, they have to be let out and you have to wait until they claim another victim. And that's not right either. In some states the laws are written so that people who are charged with murder as juveniles even have full gun ownership rights when they get out (like the Jonesboro school shooters). That's definitely not right.
Ultimately if I have to choose between public safety and rehabilitation, I'm going to choose public safety every time–but we should do both. And we can. It's the right thing to do and would even save money in most cases.