Session: Beyond Life Sentences: Exploring Juvenile Life without Parole Sentencing As a Test Case for Safe and Equitable Decarceration (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Life and long sentences drive mass incarceration, with one in 7 incarcerated people serving a life sentence and 54% of the people incarcerated in prisons serving a sentence of 10 years or more. Life and long sentences contradict prevailing wisdom on community safety and exemplify racial disparities and injustices throughout our criminal legal system. Of the ~204,000 people serving life sentences, about 10,000 are serving for offenses committed when they were under 18yo and more than 61,000 are over the age of 55. Research shows most people criminally involved in their youth naturally age out of crime and older incarcerated persons are least likely to recidivate. This offers a strong rationale for considering second chances among those serving life and long sentences; however, decarceration efforts are often challenged due to the violent nature of offenses and concerns about public safety.

Juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) is a type of life sentence imposed on minors convicted of homicide offenses. These youth were considered the most dangerous and deemed unsuitable to ever return to society. As such, they provide a unique test case for second chance policies - made possible by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that ruled mandatory JLWOP unconstitutional (Miller, 2012) and instituted retroactive resentencing eligibility for people serving JLWOP sentences pre-Miller (Montgomery, 2016).

Estimates of eligible juvenile lifers ranges from 2,100 to 2,800 but no central database exists. Further, despite the federal mandate, states were left to make independent decisions about resentencing and parole mechanisms resulting in wide variation in the implementation of state-level policies. To date, no study has examined the national landscape of policy development or implementation post-Miller, nor what elements of these policies drive safe and equitable release. A few studies find that juvenile lifers are disproportionately Black men from low-income, urban households with extensive histories of trauma but empirical research on the lived experiences among juvenile lifers is limited, especially related to their life-course experiences. This symposium includes three complementary studies that leverage an interdisciplinary approach to fill these knowledge gaps and support JLWOP as a test case for safe, equitable decarceration.

Study 1 systematically tracks the status of the JLWOP population to create the first national database, including demographics, resentencing, parole, and mortality rates. The study creates the foundation for future survey of this population and analyses related to recidivism rates and comparing those still incarcerated with those who've been released.

Study 2 uses policy surveillance methods to systematically trace the state-level policy changes across the country over the last ten years. This study documents the variations by state and provides a framework for comparison to inform and facilitate more equitable reform measures.

Study 3 is a multisite case study that explores the impact of differential state-level policies on the lived experiences of former juvenile lifers in three states. This qualitative study provides insight for how to support those serving life and long-term sentences amidst decarceration efforts.

Discussant commentary centers interdisciplinary, community-rooted collaboration and methodologically diverse approaches to reduce our nation's overreliance on harsh sentences.