Amnesty urges US to ban juveline imprisonment without parole

Nov 30, 2011, 10:46 GMT

London - Amnesty International Wednesday urged the US authorities to end the practice of imposing life prison sentences on young offenders without parole.

'In the USA, people under 18 years old cannot vote, buy alcohol, lottery tickets or consent to most forms of medical treatment but they can be sentenced to die in prison for their actions. This needs to change,' said Natacha Mension, US campaigner at Amnesty.

A new Amnesty report entitled 'This is where I'm going to be when I die' illustrates the issue through the stories of three young people.

It urges the US to ban the imposition of life sentences without parole against children and to review the cases of more than 2,500 prisoners currently serving such sentences.

Children who were as young as 11 at the time the crime was committed have faced life imprisonment without parole in the USA - the only country in the world to impose this kind of punishment on children, Amnesty said.

In the US, life without parole can be given to juvenile offenders as a mandatory punishment, without consideration of mitigating factors such as a history of abuse or trauma, the degree of involvement in the crime, the offender's mental health status or amenability to rehabilitation.

'We are not excusing crimes committed by children or minimizing their consequences but the simple reality is that these sentences ignore the special potential for rehabilitation and change that young offenders have,' said Mension.

Amnesty called on the US to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force more than two decades ago. It expressly prohibits the imposition of life imprisonment without the possibility of release for offences - however serious - committed by people under 18 years old.

All countries except the US and Somalia have ratified the Convention.

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