More young adults sentenced to life without parole

We have all made regrettable mistakes in our youth but usually with the proper punishment lessons are learned. Mistakes are a part of growing up. In 2002 Quantel Lotts at the age of 14 was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Missouri's St. Francis County Circuit Court. The charge was first-degree murder. Lotts' and stepbrother Michael Barton's playing around ended in Barton being stabbed twice and dead by the time he reached the hospital.

Now at age 23 Lotts is one of Missouri's youngest life sentence prisoners. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Alabama that defends indigent defendants and prisoners, Lotts is one of at least 73 U.S. inmates who were sentenced to life in prison for crimes they committed when they were 13 or 14.

"They locked me up and threw away the keys," Lotts said from prison. "They took away all hope for the future."

Is that justice? Yes, he committed an unspeakable crime, but he has been punished. So the question remains, should a 14 year old be imprisoned for life without any hope of a second chance? Before you answer that question here is some food for thought: Charles Manson of the "Manson Family" was convicted of seven murders when he was 27, and he will be eligible for his 12th parole hearing in 2012. Manson has been denied for parole 11 times, but he can still at least have the hope of one day being free.

"There are some people who are so fundamentally dangerous that they can't walk among us," said Jennifer Jenkins, who co-founded the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Lifers. I completely agree with Jenkins on this but some people are only misguided children who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. It is up to us as a society to stand behind these young children and give them the help they need. Tammy Lotts, the stepmother of Lotts and the victim's mother, is working with an attorney. She has forgiven Lotts and is hoping he will one day be released.

According to a study conducted by the Equal Justice Initiative there are 19 states that punish children under the age of 14 with life sentences without parole. Georgia is one of them. Based on reports from the Georgia Department of Corrections, as of May 2003 there are 78 inmates between the ages of 15-29 serving life without parole sentences.

Also according to Amnesty International, an activist organization founded in London that works to promote all human rights, the minimum age to prosecute a child as an adult in the state of Georgia is 12 and the minimum age for sentencing youth to life without parole is 13. This means that even though a child is not old enough to see an R-rated film, to serve his country, to live on his own, to sign a contract, or to vote, he can still be sentenced as an adult to serve the rest of his life behind bars.

I believe therein lies the problem because a 13 or 14 year old is not yet fully mature enough to make proper decisions for his self. A child needs guidance and nurturing, along with the occasional firm hand to teach him right from wrong. Unfortunately many children do not receive that sort of upbringing. Lotts grew up in a crack house where his mother used and sold drugs. There are court documents that reveal Lotts was sexually abused as a child. He had no stability growing up and as a result ended up becoming yet another misguided youth.The Equal Justice Initiative also reported that most youth offenders serving life without parole were exposed to poverty, violence or drugs during childhood. So is it any wonder that these children would later only imitate what they grew up seeing and think that sort of behavior is normal?

I believe that a child's brain is not fully developed until they reach the age of 21. Temple Psychology Professor Laurence Steinberg who directs the MacArthur foundation research network on adolescent development and juvenile justice states, "Although we're very far away from having a definitive answer, it's fair to say that research and developmental psychology certainly would indicate that 14-year-olds lack some abilities that would bear on questions of culpability like their ability to resist peer pressure or like their ability to control their impulses."

I can honestly say that as a young woman who grew up in the suburbs, in what most would consider a well adjusted nuclear family, I knew the difference between right and wrong but that still did not stop me from occasionally making the wrong decisions. I believe that for a childhood crime, being incarcerated for the rest of childhood and adult life without any hope of freedom is cruel and unusual.

"Children aren't just little adults, and it's starting to resonate with people," stated Ashley Nellis, an analyst at the Sentencing Project, a research organization tracking sentencing patterns. "There has been a general momentum of changing juvenile law in the last few years."

If you want to know more about what you can do, you should start by writing a letter to your governor demanding to end the sentencing of children to life without parole. There are websites available such as that offered by Amnesty International that can aid you in learning more about this issue and how you can take action.