The concept of the “teenager” is relatively new in society. Historically, children were treated as adults as soon as they reached puberty. Only within the past century have governments created a special category for adolescents.
Advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in recent decades have scientifically proven the need for this grouping. By pinpointing the prefrontal cortex as an undeveloped area of the teenage brain, scientists have found physical proof of adolescents’ impulsive behavior, impaired judgment and susceptibility to peer pressure.
Yet this designation of an in-between period has profound implications for the legal system. If teenagers are more easily swayed by emotions and impulses, are they as culpable for crimes as adults are?

Nina Oberman

No, according to the United States Supreme Court. In 2005, a ruling in Roper v. Simmons abolished the death penalty as a punishment committed for crimes for those under the age of 18.
Speaking for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated that adolescents have “an underdeveloped sense of responsibility…resulting in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions…their character is not as well formed as that of an adult.”
Following this decision, however, the courts have turned to sentences of life in prison without parole as a punishment for teenagers who commit certain heinous felonies. According to an Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) publication, 2225 juveniles have received this sentence in the United States.
“Juveniles commit murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and other serious crimes—particularly violent crimes—in numbers that dwarf those of America’s international peers,” said Heritage Foundation representative Charles Stimson. “There is an overwhelming national consensus that life without parole is, for certain types of juvenile offenders, an effective, appropriate, and lawful punishment.”
Yet maintaining a balance between public safety and individuals rights is, as always, tricky.
The United States is the only country in the world to condemn children to life in prison without parole. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country except the United States and Somalia, forbids the practice entirely.
Mae Quinn, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Civil Justice Clinic at Washington University, feels that the United States is lagging far behind most countries in juvenile justice.
“I taught this summer in Honduras about the U.S. juvenile justice system,” Quinn said. “They were shocked. This is a country rife with political turmoil and gang violence, and they were shocked by the sentencing of juveniles to life without parole.”
As she taught progressive ideas, Hondurans questioned why her own country had not adopted these practices.
“The first question I heard was always ‘If you are such a leader in the world of juvenile justice, then why has your country not signed the Convention of the Rights of the Child?’,” Quinn said.
The EJI, based in Montgomery, Alabama, is committed to fighting against the sentencing of 13 and 14-year-olds to life in prison without parole in the United States. Executive Director Bryan Stevenson brought two cases before the Supreme Court in Nov. 2009.
The first, Sullivan v. Florida, involves a 13-year-old who was sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual battery. The second, Graham v. Florida, involves a 16-year-old who was sentenced to death in prison for committing armed robbery while on parole.
Both cases are non-homicidal; however, Stevenson is hoping that the Supreme Court’s decision will ultimately make permanent imprisonment of children constitutionally impermissible in all cases.
“The essential feature of a life-without-parole sentence is that it imposes a terminal, unchangeable, once-and-for-all judgment upon the whole life of a human being and declares that human being forever unfit to be a part of civil society,” Stevenson said in his petitioner’s brief. “Roper [v. Simmons] understood and explained why such a judgment cannot rationally be passed on children below a certain age. They are unfinished products, human works-in-progress.”
Melissa Sickmund, Chief of Systems Research at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, agrees that there is a fundamental flaw in the reasoning behind this punishment.
“Juvenile justice in this country is founded on the notion of rehabilitation,” Sickmund said. “Our science shows us that kids are not finished developing yet. If somebody can still be changed, we have an obligation to try to change them.”
Indeed, the recognition of adolescents’ capacity for growth in the United States began before brain scans were invented. In 1825, The Society for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency was founded to advocate for the separation of juvenile and adult criminals.
The British doctrine of parens patriae—Latin for “the State as parent”—was used as a rationale for benevolent intervention on behalf of child offenders. Juvenile courts flourished for the first half of the 20th century, seeking to rehabilitate adolescents rather than purely punish them.
But beginning in the 1980s, demands for harsher punishments surfaced as juvenile crime rates rose.
“Imagine you are a legislator in 1994 and there is a vote before you regarding a law that will make it easier for more juveniles in your state to be tried as adults in criminal court,” Sickmund said. “The newspaper is filled with headlines like ‘Public demands adult time for adult crime’. Do you vote in favor of the law? Probably, because you did not have courses on adolescent development, and you would like to be re-elected.”
Teenagers now can be easily transferred from the juvenile system to the adult system. According to the 2006 National Report on Juvenile Offenders and Victims, 45 states have transfer provisions that require no minimum age for a child to be moved to adult court.
“The focus [of Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida] is on certain sanctions being unconstitutional,” Sickmund said. “But functionally it is about whether or not kids can be transferred to criminal court. ‘Juvenile’ is just a term. Once you are transferred, you are an adult for all intents and purposes.”
But treating a child as an adult can have devastating consequences—even if he is not sentenced to life in prison.
“Do you want to surround a young, impressionable individual with violent adults and place him in an environment where he could be victimized?” Sickmund said. “Or do you want to place him in a facility where he is being counseled and educated?”
Some adult facilities choose to separate teenagers from older inmates in an attempt to avoid physical and psychological harm.
“I have a client who at the age of 15 was transferred to the adult system,” Quinn said. “For fear that interaction with adult prisoners would be dangerous, he was held in solitary confinement for years with very little interaction or age appropriate activities. This can turn out to be extremely psychologically damaging.”
Attempts to integrate or adapt young offenders in the adult system are thus usually unsuccessful.
“I think we should do everything we can to keep these young people in the juvenile system,” Quinn said. “The adult system does very little good for juveniles. It should be a last resort, and right now, it isn’t.”
Yet preventing the transfer of youth to the adult system raises important and difficult questions. How young is too young? How can we tell the difference between an innately flawed individual and someone with the ability to change?
“Any time you are being asked to draw a line, it starts becoming arbitrary,” Quinn said. “This demonstrates the imperfection of legal systems when is comes to dealing with hard questions. Who is a child, and who is an adult? As good as the justice system may be, it cannot always come up with precise answers.”
The Supreme Court’s decisions in Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida will have critical consequences the future of juvenile justice. Life without parole is unlike the death penalty, but the definition of “cruel and unusual” changes as society progresses.
While the framers of the constitution intended for the eighth amendment to prohibit torture, the standards of punishment are changing. And when it comes to teenagers, everything is more complex.
“The prosecutors will make these young people out to be the worst monsters on the planet, and the advocates for abolishing life without parole will diminish the gravity of the crimes,” Sickmund said. “The truth lies somewhere in between.”