Nigel, here's some info on this for us all.

'... given our growing understanding of adolescent brain physiology, sentencing teenagers to die in prison serves no deterrent purpose, does not increase public safety, is exorbitantly costly for taxpayers, and is, indeed, cruel and unusual punishment.

But there remain over 2,000 individuals in prison today who are still serving life in prison for crimes they committed as youths. Most were handed down during the height of the "superpredator" panic in the 1990s.

>>>>>>> Philadelphia alone accounts for almost 10% of all of these sentences nationally, and 80% of youth sentenced to JLWOP sentences there are Black.

The Supreme Court has mandated that all individuals who were sentenced to mandatory LWOP sentences as juveniles receive a new hearing and an opportunity to make their case for eventual release....'

From http://fairpunishment.org/the-superpredator-myth-and-the-rise-of-jwlop/

...

Some hope for growth in national understanding:
http://fairpunishment.org/from-no-hope-to-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-the-accelerating-national-consensus-against-jlwop/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=750&relatedposts_position=1