In 2006, Cyntoia Brown was convicted of murdering a man who hired her for sex and sentenced to life in prison. She was sixteen years old. Brown testified that she killed the man in self defense, that she was forced into prostitution by an abusive boyfriend after escaping an abusive home. None of that mattered in the Tennessee court where she was tried as an adult.
Brown is far from alone. She is one of about 10,000 Americans serving life sentences for offenses committed as a child, meaning under the age of eighteen. Of them, approximately 2,500 are serving an even more dire sentence—life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). The United States is the only country in the world that sentences people to die in prison for offenses committed as children.
The U.S. has been grappling with how to address crimes committed by children for centuries. As early as 1899, U.S. jurisdictions began creating the world’s first juvenile courts, which held children less culpable for their crimes, diverting many away from adult prisons. Within decades, however, these courts found themselves under attack by prosecutors and others who feared they were too lenient on dangerous underage murderers. During the 1980s and 90s, the power of juvenile court judges was greatly reduced, with a corresponding increase in power for prosecutors and criminal trial courts, allowing thousands of teenagers like Cyntoia Brown to receive life sentences.
Since 2005, several key Supreme Court decisions and individual state laws have sought to protect children from the most extreme sentences, but even these reforms have faced significant resistance from prosecutors and lawmakers.