US throws away the key for 2225 child offenders

Human rights groups have accused the United States of throwing away the lives of more than 2000 children and young teenagers sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say the US is the only country on the planet to punish juveniles so severely on a routine basis. The punishment is entirely out of step with international law but is one increasingly popular with US tough-on-crime legislators.

Their study counted 2225 child offenders on "life row" in 42 states. In the rest of the world, by contrast, they found only a dozen other cases restricted to three countries - Israel, South Africa and Tanzania.

"Criminal punishment in the US can serve four goals: rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence and incapacitation," the report concluded. "No punishment should be more severe than necessary. Sentencing children to life fails on all counts."

Some US states permit the imposition of a life sentence without parole to offenders as young as 10. The youngest actually serving is 13.

Roughly one-sixth of those locked up for life committed their offence when they were under 16.

Almost 60 per cent were given their sentence for their first offence.

In most cases, the crime in question was murder. But about one quarter of those locked up, the report found, were not the actual murderers, merely participants in a robbery or burglary in which a murder was committed by someone else.

In many US states, draconian laws stipulate that being present at the scene of a murder can be equivalent to being guilty of the murder.

Remarkably, the report found that while the number of juvenile offenders being sentenced to life has gone up markedly over the past 25 years, the rate of serious juvenile crime has actually gone down.

In most years since 1985, juveniles were sentenced to life without parole at a faster rate than adult murderers.

Politicians have found that it pays significant electoral dividends to advocate "zero tolerance" policies.

As a result, legislators have introduced ever tougher regimes of minimum sentencing, including one Californian law whereby non-violent offenders can face life without parole if they are caught three times.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch said the attitude of "adult time for adult crimes" was entirely inappropriate. Sentencing teenagers to life in prison removed all motivation for education or self-improvement.

Being in an adult prison rather than a juvenile facility also exposed them to a heightened risk of assault and rape, rampant in US institutions.

Sentencing children to life without parole is specifically forbidden under the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The report found that black offenders were 10 times more likely to receive a life sentence without parole than white offenders.

"Children can and do commit terrible crimes," the report conceded. "When they do, they should be held accountable, but in a manner that reflects their special capacity for rehabilitation."

- INDEPENDENT