The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth applauds California Governor Jerry Brown’s decision today to enact Senate Bill 9, the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, which scales back California’s harshest penalty for children—life without parole—and ensures youth convicted of serious crimes get a second chance later in life. In the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory life-without-parole sentences
for youth, and amid a growing national trend to scale back extreme sentencing for youth, SB 9 offers youth sentenced to life-without-parole in California hope of resentencing and possible release later in life.
There are approximately 300 people imprisoned in California who will be directly impacted by this law. California is one of just five states that incarcerate two-thirds of the people serving life-without-parole sentence for crimes committed as youth. The United States alone sentences children to death in prison.
While this is a modest reform that still requires children to serve at least 25 years in prison, it represents a significant shift away from harsh sentencing policies that ignore the unique characteristics of children. Science has proven what every parent knows– that young people are still developing both physically and
emotionally and their brains, not just their bodies, are not yet fully mature. Because of these differences, youth have greater potential to become rehabilitated. The new law allows people who received life without parole
sentences as youth to apply for resentencing hearings on three occasions five years apart. This reform creates meaningful periodic reviews consistent with international human rights law that will assess at multiple stages in people’s sentences if they have changed enough to be reintegrated into society.
This law is also in keeping with a continued trend from the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledging that children must be treated differently from adults in the context of sentencing. In 2005, the Supreme Court prohibited
the death penalty for children, acknowledging that youthfulness is an important factor in determining whether a punishment is cruel and unusual. In 2010, the Supreme Court struck down the practice of sentencing children to life in prison without parole for non-homicide crimes. Then in June of this year, the Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole for children are unconstitutional.
Other states should follow the lead of California and the Supreme Court in abolishing extreme sentencing policies that disregard the fundamental differences between youth and adults. Many such policies were originally
established during the 1990s, a time of heightened fear resulting from the “superpredator theory,” which predicted a juvenile crime wave. It never materialized.
Nationwide, approximately 2,500 people are serving death-in-prison terms for crimes committed when they were children. In California, as throughout the country, the people condemned to these sentences are disproportionately from low-income families and minority racial backgrounds. Many were first-time offenders and often influenced by an adult co-defendant, who frequently received a lesser sentence.
As California enters this new era, we express sincere gratitude to California Senator Leland Yee, a child psychologist, who introduced the bill and championed it tirelessly for three years.
We are heartened by the progress that has been made, and know there is more work to be done to replace misguided policies that do not consider the fundamental differences between youth and adults, with ones that
ensure young people are held accountable in fair, age-appropriate ways that reflect their potential to change.