LAT Parrots Propaganda On Juvenile Justice
The September 28th Los Angeles Times’ has an article by David Savage on the Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing on two Florida juveniles who are challenging their juvenile life-without-parole sentences on Eighth Amendment grounds. Savage reports:
According to Amnesty International, “The United States is the only country in the world that does not comply with the norm against imposing life-without-parole sentences on juveniles.”
Nearly all of the estimated 2,500 U.S. prisoners serving life terms for juvenile crimes, the group said, were guilty either of murder or of participating in a crime that led to a homicide.
But as Heritage Foundation legal scholars Charles Stimson and Andrew Grossman document in their exhaustively researched 90-page report, Adult Times for Adult Crimes: Life Without Parole for Juvenile Killers and Violent Teens, these claims are just not true. The National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Lifers NOVJL notes:
First, the United States is NOT the only nation to sentence juveniles in rare and very violent crimes to long term or life sentences. It is one of 11 nations that do so, one of which is Australia.
Second, the 2500 cases number is completely made up. By actually contacting states around the country, Stimson and Grossman have completely discredited this fraudulent Human Rights Watch “estimate.” The actual number is just above 1100.
Finally, the 8th Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment have never been applied to mere incarceration.
The readers of the Los Angeles Times deserve more balanced reporting on this issue.
Tags: David Savage, juvenile justice, Los Angeles Times, Supreme Court
Jennifer Bishop Jenkins, Founder of the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Lifers NOVJL said:
Sep 29, 09 at 9:46 pmWhile I am incredibly grateful for your attention to this important issue of the propaganda about the juvenile life sentence for the most violent teen criminals in our nation, I note with interest that half of this above blog is lifted from my on-line commentary to the article as published in the Chicago Tribune. Thank you again for supporting those of us who are victims of these horrific criminals, and please credit our work and website http://www.jlwopvictims.org.
Solidarity,
Jennifer Bishop Jenkins
Co-Founder, The National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Lifers NOVJL
Conn Carroll said:
Sep 30, 09 at 9:17 amWill do Jennifer. I did not see your piece in the Tribune, but instead consulted my colleague Cully Stimson who gave me the facts above which also appear in his report mentioned in the post.