Juveniles Live Without Parole

There are approximately 1,200 people that are in jail for life for crimes they committed as children (“Sentenced Young”). More than 25% of those people “were convicted of felony murder or accomplice liability”, that is they were not the person who killed the individual and may have not even been there when the killing took place (“Facts and Inforgraphics”). The majority of the juveniles sentenced to live-without-parole come from states that’s the mandatory sentence regardless of their age or circumstances (“Facts and Inforgraphics”). California, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have the greater part of the juveniles sentenced to live-without-parole(“Facts and Inforgraphics”). 14 states have banned live-without-parole sentences

At the beginning of the 1800s juveniles were tried in the same courts as adults and when to adult prisons(Nurse 5). With all the abuse that happened in adult prisons a few judges became less willing to send juveniles that had committed minor crimes there therefore 1825 the first refuge house was founded in New York called “The New York House of Refuge”(Nurse 5). However most of the juveniles sent here were not accused of a crime, but were poor(Nurse 5). Although these refuge houses didn’t last long, in fact by the mid century, they had fallen out of favor and reform schools took their place and unlike refuge house they had more juveniles that had committed crimes (Nurse 6). In 1899 the first juvenile court was founded in “Cook County, Illinois(Nurse 6). In the earlier years the court goal was more rehabilitative then punishable. They shied away from terms like criminal and used delinquent instead “preserving the possibility of rehabilitation and signifying a lower degree of culpability”. Taking after Chicago’s example by 1925 many states had a juvenile court system along with clinics designed to help the court to come up with a treatment plan for the juveniles. There are many important cases regarding the juvenile courts but, I’ll just focus on the most important three and those would Miller v. Alabama, Roper v. Simmons, and In re Gault. First I’ll talk about In re