Juvenile Offenders Sentenced To Life Can Face Harsher Treatment Than Adults: Report

This type of information really saddens me.  Having worked in Juvenile Justice for the last 20 years, I know that some if not all of these kids can be helped.  The cost of truly helping them to learn different coping strategies is so much less that locking them in prison for life.  It is amazing to me how so much attention is given to an unborn child but very little given to the child once it is born. We must do better as a nation by our youth. This is so sad and completely unacceptable!!!

 Bobby Hines was fresh out of eighth grade when he and two older boys confronted a suspected drug dealer in Detroit whom they believed had stolen a friend’s coat. The confrontation turned into an argument and one of Hines' buddies pulled out a gun and shot and killed the man.

The shooter was later charged with second-degree murder and given the possibility of parole. Hines, who was 15 at the time, was charged with felony murder for participating in a robbery that resulted in a homicide.

Although Hines never pulled a trigger or even held a weapon that day, he was sentenced, under Michigan law, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was offered a plea bargain deal, with the chance to serve 20 to 40 years if he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder. But the middle-schooler simply didn’t understand the deal, according to Deborah LaBelle, who authored a report released on Tuesday about the systematic disadvantages facing juveniles who are placed within the adult criminal justice system.

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