Juvenile Offenders: LIfe without parole. Is it legal? Supreme Court to decide

This is something that is near and dear to my heart. I have worked in Juvenile Justice since 1992. I have worked for two premiere state agencies. The majority of my tenure has been working with juveniles in treatment facilities for long term care. I have worked with rapists, murderers, child molesters, drug dealers male and female.

Over the years, I have found some youth that were beyond what our facilities could offer. I believe we did our juvenile offenders an injustice when the state mental health institutions were defunded by the government. In my opinion, there were a lot of youth whose crimes were based more on their mental health issues as opposed to them being hard core criminals. I also found that a lot of these youth came from abusive homes, physically, sexually and emotionally.

So in my most humble opinion, I believe that the age of the youth should be considered when sentences are given. I believe when the government allowed 13 year olds to be charged as adults, the decision was made that those youth could not be helped. If our penal institutions are supposed to help to rehabilitate, then our youth should be given a chance.

So I hope the Supreme Court realizes the error and try to make it right. I think the system that Missouri has in place is a great place to start. In Missouri, they have Dual Jurisdiction. This is where a youth is committed to the Division of Youth Services as well as the Department of Corrections. In the event that the youth commits certain infractions and violations, the youth will automatically be transferred to the Department of Corrections after a hearing. The youth, family and all involve know this is the case from the beginning. It is up to the youth to decide if they will make the right choices this time.

Let's hope the Supreme Court gets it right.