Juvenile Delinquency – Theory, Practice, and Law

In their jointly published report “The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States,” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International condemn the practice of trying children as adults and sentencing them to life in adult prisons without the possibility of parole. These civil rights watchdog groups found that at least 2,225 child offenders serving life without parole (LWOP) sentences in U.S prisons committed their crimes before age 18; 16 percent were between 13 and 15 years old at the time they committed their crimes; 59 percent were sentenced to life without parole for their first-ever criminal conviction.