An 86-year sentence for a teenager forces people to confront what they truly believe punishment is for. For many victims and families, nothing feels “enough” compared to what was taken from them. A long sentence can affirm that their pain is real, that their loss matters, and that the system is willing to act decisively to protect others from similar harm. It can feel like the only available language strong enough to match the permanence of their grief.
Yet when the person being sentenced is still very young, the idea of permanence becomes more complicated. Adolescence is a time when judgment, empathy, and foresight are still developing. A sentence that stretches across almost an entire lifetime can mean the system has decided, in advance, that growth will never matter. The hardest challenge is not choosing between victims and offenders, but designing justice that honors suffering, protects the public, and still leaves space for a young person to become someone different from the worst thing they once did.
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