By Rhonda Swan

Palm Beach Post

The statistic is glaring.

Florida has nearly 60 percent of the nation's juvenile offenders serving life sentences with no parole for crimes that did not involve taking a life. Of the 129 nationwide, 77 are in Florida prisons. This is the only state to sentence youths to life without parole for burglary, battery, and carjacking. All other juveniles serving life without parole for non-homicides committed kidnapping and rape.

These facts were omitted from many of this week's reports about the Supreme Court's ruling to end life without parole sentences for juveniles who don't kill. As was the fact that 84 percent of the juveniles so sentenced in Florida are black.

The decision was prompted by the case of Terrance Graham. He was 16 when Duval County Circuit Court Judge Lance Day sentenced him to life without parole for an armed burglary in which no one was hurt. Graham had a record, so Judge Day thought that he should lock him up and throw away the key. "Given your escalating pattern of criminal conduct," he told Graham, "it is apparent to the court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try and protect the community from your actions."

The Supreme Court ruled that Graham's sentence was cruel and unusual punishment because it gave the young man no hope of gaining freedom. That hope, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, should be afforded to all juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes. They should not have a guarantee of release, but they at least should have the possibility of another chance.

Florida, however, is not big on giving chances. Since the state must now decide how to comply with the court's ruling, it's a good time to reexamine its system of justice.

The state's get-tough response to crime with minimum mandatory and harsh sentences hasn't worked. Florida has the third-highest prison population with more than 101,000 inmates, a 20 percent increase from 2005. The Pew Center on the States reported last month that while the country overall saw a decline in the number of state prisoners for the first time in 37 years, Florida was one of 24 states that saw an increase.

One reason is the state's failure to invest in educational, vocational and substance-abuse treatment programs that have proven to reduce recidivism and help inmates turn around their lives.

For this fiscal year, the Legislature appropriated $2.2 billion to the Department of Corrections. Only 1.2 percent went to inmate programs. If prisons lack the resources to do nothing more than breed better criminals, they help inmates to reenter prison, not society. Business groups in Florida agree, and support a different approach.

In the Supreme Court's ruling, Justice Kennedy wrote that rehabilitation is "a penological goal that forms the basis of parole systems." For juveniles, those most likely to learn from their mistakes and change, life imprisonment without parole "forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal," he wrote. "By denying the defendant the right to reenter the community, the state makes an irrevocable judgment about that person's value and place in society."

Some juveniles are beyond help. Justice Kennedy, however, pointed out that judges and juries can not determine beforehand which youngsters those are.

The court ruled that states must give juvenile offenders the chance to prove they have been rehabilitated, thus candidates for release. It follows that states also must provide the resources for those offenders to become rehabilitated.

Ironically, Florida lawmakers had the chance this year to implement a parole system for inmates serving life who committed crimes as juveniles. The Second Chance for Children in Prison Act died last month in committee. Because of the Supreme Court ruling, maybe some of those juvenile offenders who deserve a second chance won't have to die in prison.

Please read the opinions here:

The ruling in Graham v. Florida

The order in Sullivan v. Florida