Should Juvenile Offenders Ever Be Sentenced to Life without the Possibility of Parole?

摘要

The United States is one of the only industrialized nations that sentences individuals to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as juveniles. Last November, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases that asked whether this practice is constitutional. Those who hope the Court will ban this sentence have pointed to its 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons abolishing the juvenile death penalty, and argued that the logic applied in that opinion to exclude minors from capital punishment should exempt them from life without parole as well. In the current cases, as in Roper, scientists pointed to recent research on adolescent brain and behavioral development to argue that juveniles are fundamentally different from adults in ways that warrant their differential treatment under the law [Steinberg, 2009].