The U.S. is the only nation that sentences young people to life in prison. More than 11,000 individuals are serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were juveniles, and approximately 2,100 of them are condemned to remain behind bars without the possibility of parole, according to the most recent data cited by The Sentencing Project.
But since 2012, those “permanent lifers” have been given the chance of a reprieve, thanks to the watershed Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabamathat life sentences without parole for individuals who committed murder as adolescents were unconstitutional.