He was in his cell, waiting to be executed, and he asked as a last, See!

The shadow of the American carceral system falls longest and most heavily upon its youngest inhabitants. Within the sprawling network of federal and state prisons, there exists a demographic that challenges the very moral foundations of modern jurisprudence: children. In the United States, at least 79 individuals who were under the age of 14 at the time of their offenses are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. This stark reality—the condemnation of a child to die in prison—has ignited a firestorm of national and international outrage, positioning the U.S. as a global outlier in its treatment of juvenile offenders.