UNITED STATES: Inhuman sentencing in practice

1 This figure was determined using a combination of the data provided in The Sentencing Project’s report No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America (available at http://www.sentencingproject.org/detail/publication.cfm?publication_id=280&id=106) and State Distribution of Estimated 2,574 Juvenile Offenders Serving Juvenile Life Without Parole, an update to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International's joint report The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United State, first published in 2005 (Updated table available at http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/02/state-distribution-juvenile-offenders-serving-juvenile-life-without-parole; original report available at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/10/11/rest-their-lives). No Exit lists 6,807 juvenile offenders serving sentences of life imprisonment, including 1,755 without the possibility of parole. Because No Exit uses figures that track states’ definitions of juvenile offender and hence exclude some persons under 18 serving sentences of life imprisonment where they were ineligible for juvenile court jurisdiction, the figure provided for juveniles serving life sentences without the possibility of parole has been replaced with the comparable and more robust figure of 2,574 provided in State Distribution. Even with this substitution, this figure still likely underestimates the total number of persons serving sentences of life imprisonment for offences committed when they were under the age of 18 given the varying definition of juvenile offender in No Exit.

2 Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. __ at 13 (2010) (slip opinion). This figure is based on the United States Supreme Court’s own independent research and the data provided in the Public Interest Law Center at Florida State University’s study Juvenile Life without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation (Sept. 2009), available at http://www.law.fsu.edu/faculty/profiles/annino/Report_juvenile_lwop_092009.pdf.