Juvenile Sentencing (H 7596, S 2272)

Legislation introduced this year would have addressed the issuance of lengthy prison sentences against juveniles who are charged as adults. As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, adolescence is marked by “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences.” Yet many who commit their crimes as children are viewed as incapable of rehabilitation, and incarcerated long into adulthood. Under the proposed legislation, juveniles sentenced as adults would automatically come before the parole board after fifteen years, regardless of the length of their sentence. Such a proposal, the ACLU testified, would give these young adults the chance to prove their fitness to return to society. In 2017, a version of this bill passed the Senate but died in the House. This year, neither the House nor Senate Judiciary committee acted on the bill.