PDF Resentencing of Juvenile Lifers: The Philadelphia Experience
This study examined the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (DAO) approach to juvenile lifer resentencing under two different administrations starting in 2017, after the U.S. Supreme Court made juvenile lifers retroactively eligible (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 2016) for resentencing under the 2012 landmark ruling that mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles (JLWOP) were unconstitutional (Miller v. Alabama). The researchers found a recidivism rate (defined as reconviction for any offense) of just 1.14% among people who were sentenced as juveniles in Philadelphia to life without the possibility of parole and then subsequently released.