Attitudes regarding life sentences for juvenile offenders

Twice in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has considered the constitutionality of life sentences without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for juvenile offenders. Given the public nature of this issue, there is scant information on beliefs about imposing LWOP on juveniles. Attitudes on related issues suggest two possibilities. On the one hand, because public opinion regarding juvenile offenders has become somewhat less punitive recently, LWOP may be viewed as excessively harsh punishment. On the other hand, portrayal of some juvenile offenders as superpredators suggests that LWOP may still have public support. We used survey methodology and the unique "ninth justice paradigm" to examine how an offender's age influences beliefs about the appropriateness of LWOP, and the relationship between those beliefs and punishment-related ideologies. Results showed that, except in the case of murder, the majority of respondents disfavored imposing LWOP on juveniles, though a subset approved broad use of LWOP even for young offenders. In fact, after removing from consideration those who oppose LWOP under any circumstances, youthfulness of the offender has little impact on the beliefs about the types of crimes in which LWOP should be imposed (Study 1) or the mean sentence lengths imposed on juvenile offenders (Study 2). Respondents' punishment goals influenced their attitudes, as did beliefs about the likelihood of rehabilitation and reform. Harsh judgments of juveniles who commit serious crimes may result from dispositional attributions of youthful offenders as irredeemable.