Law Commons^™

Protecting America’S Children: Why An Executive Order Banning Juvenile Solitary Confinement Is Not Enough, Carina Muir

Pepperdine Law Review

Despite its devastating psychological, physical, and developmental effects on juveniles, solitary confinement is used in juvenile correctional facilities across the United States. This Comment posits that such treatment violates the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It likewise argues that that President Obama’s recent Executive Order banning juvenile solitary confinement is simply not a powerful enough remedy and discusses why it must be paired with Congressional legislation or Supreme Court jurisprudence if it is to …

Comments: When Psychology Answers Constitutional Questions: The Eighth Amendment And Juvenile Sentencing, Emily M. Steiner

University of Baltimore Law Review

While weighing whether or not to turn himself in for murder and surrender to prison, a 23-year-old law student questions the high premium placed on imprisonment as a rehabilitative measure. After finally submitting to imprisonment, however, Rodion Raskolnikov comes to understand the value of atoning for his crimes and how his punishment correlates with societal justice. The balance struck between an appropriate amount of suffering and society’s need for justice is at the heart of Raskolnikov’s character development.

Despite Raskolnikov’s imprisonment and accompanying character transformation, one important question remains unanswered by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel: at what point does a punishment …