>But Penna has 1/3 the pop of Calif! That means that Penna has
>something 5 times the per capita rate. I realize the story is about
>Calif, but what's wrong with the Keystone State?
Part of it is super predator hangover. This is from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (2/18/07):
[....]
There are two main reasons for Pennsylvania's large population of juvenile offenders. The first is a modification of the state's juvenile law in 1995, called the "adult time" law, which required juveniles charged with serious crimes to appear initially in adult court. Judges have the discretion to decide whether to transfer the case back to juvenile court.
The second is that the state parole board cannot grant parole to anyone with an LWOP sentence. Only the governor can grant clemency.
'Super-predator' fears Pennsylvania's "adult time" law and those in 39 other states were promulgated in the mid-1990s based on fears of "super-predators," hardened juveniles who, it was believed, needed to be tried in adult courts for their adult crimes. But the Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International study showed that the number of juveniles convicted of murder actually declined between 1990 and 2000, from 2,234 to 1,006 -- nearly 55 percent. Still, the percentage of juveniles receiving life without parole sentences increased by 216 percent, to 9 percent of the total.
According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the United States is one of a handful of countries using life without parole for juveniles, and is one of only two countries -- the other is Somalia -- that did not ratify the 1990 Convention on the Right of the Child, which forbids the practice. [....]
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07049/763076-85.stm#