Several recommendations have been made for changes in the juvenile courts without abolishing them altogether. Juveniles are protected by International Law from execution, and it has become jus cogens nor (The Death, 2005). Th United States, one of the few countries to condone the practice, finally outlawed it in March last year, declaring it unconstitutional. This brought to an end the U.S. reputation as the most egregious violator of the international ban. The practice of sentencing juveniles to life imprisonment without parole is accepted almost as international law, but the United States began the practice in the 1990s, even though the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) prohibits the practice. The US is again the most egregious violator of the ban, having roughly 7,000 juveniles serving life sentences at present. The Human Rights Commission is strongly in favor of keeping the juvenile justice system and abolishing the death penalty for juveniles, and urges the United States to abolish the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for juveniles.
The numbers of juveniles serving life sentences without the chance of parole in the US is due to legislation allowing juveniles to be sentenced as adult, with 40 states and the District of Columbia passing laws allowing such trials between 1992 and 1995 (The Death, 2005). Racial minorities are disproportionately represented among juveniles serving life sentences without parole. The irony is that sentencing juveniles as adults runs counter to the whole idea of a juvenile justice system. What some have proposed in place of the juvenile justice system is to abolishing it altogether and try juveniles along with all other criminal cases (Feld, 2006).
Sentences for adults imposed on juveniles do not take into account their lessened culpability because of lower cognitive development because of their age (The Death, 2005). Feld does not believe the juve...