Mother Jones magazine asks “Does the justice system think white kids are more redeemable than [B]lack kids?”
“In 2005, when the Supreme Court struck down the use of capital punishment sentences for juveniles, it was a step toward greater legal recognition that children are different from adults—that young people’s changing brains and social vulnerability make them less culpable for their actions, and that because they are young, they have a greater chance at reform. Another step in this direction came in 2012, in the case Miller v. Alabama, when the justices ruled the use of automatic life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders was unconstitutional. Today, an estimated 2,230 people in the United States are serving life without parole for crimes they committed before they turned 18.”