The System

Juvenile Justice

Should a court decide if a child is sentenced to life imprisonment without parole?

The American criminal justice system enforces our laws and keeps watch over us – but who is watching the system? Award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger examines the state of America’s criminal justice system.

In this episode of The System, we take a look at the issue of juvenile sentencing, and consider two compelling cases in Michigan that raise the question of whether children convicted of murder should be subjected to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A battle is now waging to decide how to sentence juvenile killers, and what to do with the more than 360 juvenile lifers already sentenced to die in the state’s prisons. The System looks at how a new law could change the fate of juvenile ‘lifers’.