SAN FRANCISCO—California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill Sunday that gives a second chance to those who were sentenced as youth to life without parole.
Currently, almost 300 people in California are imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole for committing a crime when they were younger than 18, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, or Bill 9, will give those offenders the chance to request a review of their case, to consider a new sentence that includes the possibility of parole after 25 years.
“With passage of Senate Bill 9, California is pushing the United States to a more humane system of sentencing youth offenders,” said Elizabeth Calvin, senior child rights advocate at Human Rights Watch.
“Instead of locking up teens and throwing away the key, this law will allow careful review of these people as they grow up,” she added.
The passing of the act follows several recent Supreme Court decisions that have acknowledged the developmental differences between adult and youth offenders.
“The neuroscience is clear—brain maturation continues well through adolescence and thus impulse control, planning, and critical thinking skills are not yet fully developed,” said State Senator Leland Yee, in a press release. Yee has sponsored the bill and is also a trained child psychologist.
A 2012 Human Rights Watch report on youth sentenced to life without parole demonstrated evidence for young people’s ability to change.
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