Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth
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Juvenile life without parole The United States is the only country that sentences children to life without parole.[1]
The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth Established in 2009, the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to abolishing juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) in the United States and other extreme sentences for children.
As of May 2023, 28 states have abolished juvenile life without parole - up from just three states in 2012.[2] An additional five states currently have no one serving juvenile life without parole. [3]
In 2012, nearly 3,000 people were serving life without parole for an offense committed as a child.[4] The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth has collected individual-level data for every person in the United States convicted of life without parole for a crime committed under the age of 18 since the year 2016, reporting that more than 1,000 people who were sentenced to JLWOP have been released in the U.S. as of June 2023. [5]
Supreme Court Decisions Supreme Court opinions such as Miller v Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v Louisiana (2016) established that children should be sentenced differently than adults.[6]
Graham v. Florida(2010): On May 17, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to sentence someone to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a non-homicide crime committed under the age of 18. The Court found the sentence to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment if a youth “did not kill or intend to kill.”[7]
Miller v. Alabama (2012): On June 25, 2012, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it is unconstitutional to impose a life-without-parole sentence on someone who was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime without first considering “how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.”[8]
''Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016): On January 25th, 2016, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that its 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama applied retroactively to the more than 2600 individuals previously sentenced to life without parole as children.[9]
References[edit]
- ↑ UN expert slams US as only nation to imprison kids for life without parole http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/9/un-expert-slams-us-as-only-nation-to-sentence-kids-to-life-without-parole.html
- ↑ More than half of all US states have abolished life without parole for children https://cfsy.org/map2023/
- ↑ Id.
- ↑ "All Children are Children", The Equal Justice Initiative (2017) https://eji.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/AllChildrenAreChildren-2017-sm2.pdf
- ↑ "Sentencing Children to Life Without Parole: National Numbers", The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (2023) https://cfsy.org/sentencing-children-to-life-without-parole-national-numbers/
- ↑ US Supreme Court Cases Regarding Juvenile Life Without Parole https://cfsy.org/media-resources/u-s-supreme-court-cases/
- ↑ Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 69 (2010). https://cfsy.org/wp-content/uploads/Graham-v.-Florida-Opinion.pdf
- ↑ Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) https://cfsy.org/wp-content/uploads/Miller-v.-Alabama.pdf Miller v. Alabama (2012)
- ↑ Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ___ (2016)https://cfsy.org/wp-content/uploads/Montgomery-v.-Louisiana-Retroactive.pdf
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