Giving young offenders another chance

THE SCIENCE is now undisputed: Adolescents' brains make them more impetuous, more susceptible to peer pressure, and less able to make good decisions. This lessens their culpability for the crimes they commit.

But adolescents' brains also make it easier for them to change, and to be rehabilitated.

The question before the U.S. Supreme Court - and the country as a whole - is whether to follow the science or cling to "throw away the key" policies that have filled our prisons with many young people who could, if given the chance, be rehabilitated and go on to lead productive lives.

The court last week held hearings on whether it violates the Eighth Amendment against "cruel and unusual punishment" to sentence adolescents to life without parole for crimes other than murder. The United States is the only country that does this. There are 109 such prisoners nationwide, 77 in Florida.

But the case before the court is only one aspect of a national conversation that is proceeding about how to treat juveniles charged with crimes. This includes the 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision in which the court ruled 5-4 that juveniles should be excluded from the death penalty. It continues with hearings held last summer before the Judiciary Committee on a bill that would require states to grant parole hearings after 15 years to prisoners sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles.

It also includes two bills and a resolution introduced into the Pennsylvania House of Representatives this fall. One, sponsored by state Rep. Kenyatta Johnson, D-Phila., would end the life-

without-parole sentence for juveniles and grant parole hearings to the 450 prisoners now serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles- the largest number in the world.

None of these bills suggest that juveniles who commit crimes should not be incarcerated, but that they should not be deprived of all hope of release. Much of the research on adolescents and crime has been done by Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg, who this week was awarded a $1 million prize from a Swiss philanthropic organization to continue his work.

Steinberg's research, among other scientific findings listed in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, provides strong pushback against the fad of recent years to try children as adults. The research counters the idea that screams out at us from TV dramas or from people who want to establish their crime-fighting bona fides by giving up on young people. For example:

* Adolescents who are violent in their teen years are not necessarily destined for lives of crime. Far from being irredeemable, juvenile offenders often "grow out of" criminality, even without being arrested or punished first. One study found that 30 percent of boys who were examined had committed one or more violent acts by age 18 - for which few were arrested. Yet more than than three-fourths had stopped being violent by the time they reached 21 and beyond.

* The possibility of being locked away the rest of their lives does not deter juvenile crime. The same impulsiveness documented in brain studies explains why teenagers wouldn't stop to think of the legal consequences before they acted.

* It turns out that, even without the science, the founders of the juvenile-justice system got it right 100 years ago. Juvenile court held adolescents accountable for their actions, but provided at least one more chance to set their lives right. Juvenile offenders should get the chance at parole, and redemption; we hope the court concurs. *