The Supreme Court decisions in Miller v. Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016) resulted in the resentencing of individuals originally sentenced to mandatory life without parole as children. To understand the unique experiences of people sentenced to life without parole as juveniles but later released, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 47 people in Philadelphia about their time incarcerated and since being released. Participants spent an average of 33 years incarcerated, entering prison on average around 16 years old. The report outlines the unique needs and burdens of people sentenced to life without parole as juveniles. One of these unique challenges cited by 72 percent of participants was navigating a lifetime parole, which can lead to additional bureaucratic and financial obligations which can pose burdens. For a fifth of participants, fees were cited as causing financial hardship and additional stress around consequences of nonpayment.
The authors argue that lifetime parole may not only be unnecessary, but actually counterproductive to successful reentry. None of the 47 participants in this study were arrested post-release, and the broader Philadelphia cohort only had a 4.2 percent recidivism rate in a five-year follow up. Rather than investing resources in supervision and fee enforcement –which is costly to collect– the authors recommend redirecting funds toward rehabilitative programming that addresses their unique needs, including technology training, life skills education, and support for family reintegration.
You can read the full text of the study here.