Skip to content A justice system must consider the victim while also applying the law fairly to the person accused or convicted.
That balance becomes especially difficult when the defendant was also a child.
What a Long Sentence Really Means
When people read “50 years” or “58 years,” it can be difficult to visualize what that actually represents.
For a teenager, decades are almost impossible to comprehend.
Fifty years is longer than many people’s entire working lives.
It can encompass multiple generations.
A person sentenced at 14 could potentially remain incarcerated through much of adulthood and into old age.