Juvenile life without the possibility of parole: Constitutional but complicated

Lifers Admitted as Juveniles in the Canadian Prison Population

“…2 Both neurological and social science research was cited extensively in three landmark decisions of the US Supreme Court that limited the severity of sanctions for crimes committed by persons younger than 18 years of age ( Graham v. Florida; 2010; Miller v. Alabama , 2012; Roper v. Simmons , 2005). These cases have also led to a growing amount of recent scholarly commentary that has shed light on the practice of imposing life sentences on juvenile offenders (Carmichael and Burgos, 2011; Coleman and Coleman, 2012; Johnson and Tabriz, 2011; Kennedy, 2013; Mallett, 2013; Nellis, 2012). This issue is of particular interest in the United States, where there are an estimated 7000 persons who were less than 18 years old when they committed their offences and approximately 2000 of them have no access to parole (Nellis and King, 2009); what Johnson and Tabriz (2011: 198) have called ‘death by incarceration’.…”