Ending Life without Parole for Juvenile Offenders

Human Rights Watch has joined 25 other organizations in filing an amicus brief before the U. S. Supreme Court in the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Arkansas. Both involved offenders who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed when they were 14 years old. The United States is the only country in the world that sentences youth to life without the possibility of parole for offenses committed before the age of 18. Universally accepted standards, including several treaties to which the United States is a party, condemn such sentencing of youth. We argue that international practice, opinion, and treaty obligations support holding all life without-parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional.

Virtually every other country in the world either has never engaged in or has rejected the sentencing of persons convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18 to life without possibility of parole. The few countries in which juveniles were previously reported to be serving life sentences without parole have either changed their laws or explained that juvenile offenders can apply for parole.

Universally accepted standards condemn sentencing juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole. All countries except the United States and Somalia are parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the sentence. Several treaties that the United States is party to have also been interpreted to prohibit the sentence.

The community of nations rejects sentencing any juvenile offender to die in prison, whatever the offense. Allowing the practice to continue in the United States would be inconsistent with contemporary standards of decency and contrary to the Eighth Amendment. The appropriate remedy is to ensure that persons incarcerated for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18 have a meaningful opportunity to obtain release at the end of a term of years sentence or through parole consideration.

Question

Why do you believe that a few countries continue to execute juveniles or sentence then to very long prison terms despite overwhelming world practice disallowing it? Does the nature of the countries involved provide any clues?