Responding to the Ambiguity of Miller v. Alabama: The Time Has Come for States to Legislate for a Juvenile Restorative Justice Sentencing Regime

Courtney Amelung

Between the late 1970s and 1990s, the criminal justice system in the United States became increasingly punitive, as a movement to restructure the sentencing process and increase sentence severity took hold. The prior “rehabilitative ideal” fell apart and was replaced by an ideology that emphasized incapacitation and retribution as primary goals of criminal sentencing. This shift toward a punitive ideal influenced not only the treatment of adult offenders but also juvenile offenders. States enacted “tough on crime” policies in response to concerns that the juvenile justice system was unable to effectively address violent youth crime. One such policy permitted states to lower the minimum age at which an adult court could exercise jurisdiction over a juvenile. Consequently, some juveniles convicted of homicide in adult court became subject to the mandatory life-without-parole sentences imposed by twenty-eight states and the federal government. In the United States, more than 2,500 individuals are serving life-without-parole sentences for homicides they committed as juveniles. More than 2,000 of those individuals were sentenced under a mandatory sentencing regime.