The United States is the only country in the world that continues to imprison children for life without the possibility of ever being released, in what a United Nations expert on torture said amounts to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
"Life sentences without the possibility of release for children are expressly prohibited by international law and treaties," Juan Méndez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, wrote in the 21-page-report released Monday, RT reported. "The vast majority of States have taken note of the international human rights requirements regarding life imprisonment of children without the possibility of release. Significantly, the United States of America is the only State in the world that still sentences children to life imprisonment without the opportunity for parole for the crime of homicide."
Sentencing children to life in prison is outlawed under numerous international laws, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to Al Jazeera.
Louis Kraus, the chairman of the juvenile justice reform committee at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, said he believes the practice of imprisoning children for life without parole is "a devastating process to even conceptualize."
"These kids have not developed. These are eighth-graders and, in some states, younger than that," Kraus said.
"The toughest part is that the crimes children might have committed, as devastating as they may have been, are really in unformed brains," said Kraus. "These teenagers are not the same as their adult counterparts will be. Many of them are not going to be that same person. They're going to show greater insight, better empathy, less impulsivity, better reasoning ability in terms of understanding the short- and long-term ramifications of their behavior."
The United States somewhat ironically imposed sanctions against top Venezuelan officials on Monday, claiming that the democratically-elected government poses a "threat to national security" due to a number of human rights abuses. As TelesurTV notes, the U.S.'s preoccupation with human rights is somewhat puzzling considering its long history of violating human rights and supporting governments around the world that violate human rights.
