Here's an interesting tidbit (thanks to Lawyers, Guns, and Money): outside the United States, only 12 people are serving life in prison and were sentenced while minors. Kids, that is, under 17.
In the United States, we have 2,225 people serving life without parole who were sentenced as minors. 2,225. I'm sorry, you cannot tell me that any kid under 17 is so damned dangerous to society that he or she has to be locked up for sixty or seventy years. That's just stupid -- a juicy corporate handout to the prison industry. 227 of those were in California alone!
Corporate welfare. Great stuff, if you're on the receiving end.
More information on this travesty of American justice at Human Rights Watch and at Amnesty. Also, a helpful chart for the visually oriented among us.
Oh, one last thing -- the report notes that black kids get life without parole ten times more often than white ones. Quelle surprise.
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