The Supreme Court, reflecting common sense and perhaps even compassion, has overturned laws permitting states to imprison children and throw away the key. Some justices, voting in the majority, found it a violation of the Eight Amendment barring “cruel and unusual punishment.” And so it is.
Following the reasoning that led the Court to abolish the death penalty for juveniles, the conclusion reached is that life without the possibility of parole is just as cruel. The thought that a child of fourteen, no matter how heinous and unspeakable the crime, should never again see the light of day, and shall have squandered his entire life because of a single act, denies human sensibilities and the capacity for compassion that renders the rest of us human. Society can only exact such punishment on a child if it collectively turns a blind eye on the very concept of humanity.
No doubt, such draconian punishment, which hardly exists in other nations, is a product of the harsh turn that society had taken in the face of the escalation of violent crime in 1970s and 80s. It brought us such responses as the Rockefeller drug laws and “three strikes and you are out” phenomena. It resulted in an unprecedented level of incarceration, unequaled anywhere in the world or in America’s history. For more than a hundred years the percentage of those imprisoned remained constant, including in the 1930s, which saw a rise in organized crime. But then in the 70s, this changed so that now the United States is the world’s leader with more than two million people in our prisons and jails. Most of them are there for none violent drug-related crimes, and a disproportionate number are African-American. The racism inherit in the criminal justice system is beyond refutation, as prisons in general are perhaps America’s greatest shame.
They are also the scene of our most egregious human rights abuses, among them the life-long imprisonment of children. And in regard to human rights, America remains the only nation on the globe that has balked at ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Somalia hasn’t as well, but can be excused on the ground that it does not have a functioning government). The Convention bars imprisonment without parole for perpetrators under 18. Had we ratified the Convention, the overturning of this inhumane practice may have come sooner.
Optimists may take hope that the Supreme Court’s decision is in line with early steps which will lead to the humanization of our criminal justice system overall. In New York State, the prison population is declining as the criminal justice system is seeking alternatives to incarceration. Just this past week Congress held hearings on the abuse of solitary confinement, assuredly a form of torture which violates international norms.
Part of this turn may be due to the reality of the continuing decline of violent crime nation-wide. When people feel safer they are more open to exploring alternatives beyond the merely punitive. Part of it may be due to the the financial strain of state budgets, a rationale that has no moral content. But whatever the causes, any move away from the unconscionably barbaric reflex of imprisonment and more imprisonment is to be welcomed.
joe chuman 