Juves serving life terms
The Monterey County Herald has this extended article about harsh sentences for juvenile offenders entitled “Sentencing children to life behind bars: A throw-away-the-key political climate means longer sentences — and fewer paroles.” Here are excerpts:
In courts around the country, life sentences are being handed down at a dramatically increasing rate, and this new crop of “lifers” is getting younger than ever. Nearly 10,000 U.S. juveniles are serving life terms — with or without possibility of parole — said a recent New York Times survey.
Meanwhile, life sentences for all age groups have climbed across the country. The number of Americans in prison for life has quadrupled since the mid-1980s.
Californians serving life make up about a quarter of the nation’s total. One of every five inmates in the state has a life term, and their numbers are increasing rapidly. Since 2001, the population of lifers shot up 65 percent. And few of these lifers, most of whom are eligible for parole, are ever released.
With the lifetime cost of each life sentence estimated at more than $2 million, California taxpayers will spend at a minimum some $66 billion to keep the state’s lifer population of 33,000 behind bars. That’s not accounting for the rapidly rising cost of medical care for an aging lifer class that will grow infirm behind bars.
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