Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Present Death Row Inmates Under Juvenile Death Sentences and Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973, to May 1, 1994

• NCJ Number: 149512
• Author(s): V L Streib
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services; Cleveland State University
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper examines 21 years of juvenile death sentencing in the U.S. under modern death penalty statutes.

Abstract

Over the past 21 years, both the annual juvenile death sentencing rate and the juvenile death row population remain very small compared to those of their adult counterparts, accounting for between 1 percent and 2 percent of the totals. While homicide arrests of juveniles have risen about 170 percent over the past 10 years (compared to a 25 percent increase in adult homicide arrests), there has not been a comparable increase in juvenile death sentencing. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of juvenile death sentences when it ruled, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, that offenders cannot be executed for crimes committed before the age of 16. Since the reimposition of the death penalty in 1973, 125 juvenile offenders have been sentenced to death; 34 of these sentences remain in force, 66 have been reversed, and nine have resulted in execution. 4 tables, 5 notes, and 2 appendixes