America and Life Prison Terms

[A Black Falcon]

I didn't realize that true life terms were something rare in the world these days... oh, I know that Europe has no death penalty (under moral grounds), but didn't realize that prison terms over 20 years long were very rare there. It's interesting... on the one hand, the people need appropriate punishments for their crimes and should not be released if they present a danger to society (of re-committing crimes). But on the other hand, life in prison -- especially for teenagers, who we have legally defined as people who do not has as much rationality as adults (since they are younger and their brains have not fully developed yet) -- is an unbelievably cruel sentence... not as cruel as death, because nothing is, but very, very harsh. It shouldn't be used for just anything... and for these articles, the fact that they are juveniles should definitely be a factor... it IS true that juveniles don't have as much sense as adults. The courts have already said that the death penalty for juveniles isn't okay... as one of the articles says, juvenile life terms is probably next (I hadn't even thought about it before seeing this, but it's probably right...)...