If the prison door swings back open, then what?

In the recent decision by Michigan’s Supreme Court to eliminate the sentence of life without parole for adjudicated offenders aged 19 and 20-years-old, the court indicated that long-standing science behind brain development was one of the key factors.  

Therefore, the relevant question we must ask ourselves writ large is this: is our goal as a society true justice or simply punishment? 

Research by pioneering psychologists like Erikson and Piaget is so respected that it is routinely taught in psychology textbooks. Although not indicated by name, that foundational research and the court’s indication that the neuroplasticity of a developing brain before the age of 25, as well as relevant case law, was instrumental in the decision to disallow the affected age group to be automatically sentenced to life without parole for first degree murder (building on the 2022 decision regarding 18-year-olds).  

Utilizing prevailing research as a component of legal decision-making is a win for logic, reasoning, and science but the dissenting opinion of the decision cannot be ignored. The dissent, penned by Chief Justice Clement, indicated that first degree murder is a grave offense, and, a “…punishment of great severity is therefore proportionate,” while also indicating that the majority decision focuses on examining the offender and not the offense.  

Therein lies the issue with what we tell ourselves, as a society, about how and why we incarcerate and hints at the reasoning behind the United States leading all developed nations in per capita prison populations.  Especially in Michigan. 

This is all rooted in the notion that we, as a society, view ourselves as a rehabilitative one that values change and personal responsibility… in theory. Faith-based and popular media stories routinely feature redemption arcs of men and women that have committed heinous crimes and acts but can find a place in society through change and sacrifice.  

The belief in these redemption arcs seem to end with Michigan’s prison population wherein, much like the dissenting opinion, a blanket punitive sentence is applied regardless of the rehabilitative potential of the offender. In large part based off the “tough on crime” rhetoric of the 1990s, the state is left with a prison population serving long sentences far greater than the majority of other states. The Council on Criminal Justice (2023) indicated that 66% of Michigan’s prison population is serving 10+ years based on 2016 releases and the average sentence is 20 years, which is much higher than most other states.  

It appears that we have not only given up the idea of rehabilitative incarceration but moved in the exact opposite direction. To date, the youngest ‘juvenile lifer’ in the state was Dontez Tillman. He was sentenced in 2011 at the age of 17 to life without parole for participating in the murder of a homeless man with friends where he was first arrested and in the system at 14. In 2025, he is now 30 years old. While Tillman was subsequently resentenced in 2015 to a term of 32-and-a-half to 60 years in prison, the earliest he could be set free is 2041.

If we continue to apply that blanket approach to sentencing and noting that only these long sentences can keep our communities safe, then are we to throw out the entirety of research on the matter, our purported belief in the ability for one to redeem themselves, and basic common sense? 

Although I have never met Mr. Tillman, I have encountered and worked in an academic and forensic setting with many men and women who are currently serving very long sentences for crimes committed in their youth. I would hazard that Mr. Tillman is a functionally different person than he was when he was in his adolescence. Recrimination and remorse are routinely part of an incarcerated person’s daily existence, but the system that we have in place does not have a mechanism to recognize that. If one can grow, learn, and become fundamentally changed in one environment, then that should apply to all environments… including our prison system. 

In addition, think of the standard brain development the court used to base the recent decision on. Brain development and socialization are not standardized, of course, but Piaget, Erikson, and others have mapped out general stages. However, some differences are common. This is under the assumption that development and socialization take place in an average society. What if, like Mr. Tillman and many others, that development takes place in a prison environment?

There are no predictors on what incarceration does on brain development for adolescents, but the effects of incarceration on adults are startling. A rehabilitant society would never entertain the thought of allowing young people who have made terrible mistakes and choices to simply rot and, essentially, grow up in one of the most violent and hopeless landscapes imaginable.  

Yet, fear still pervades our societal view, and that fear means we must do whatever possible to ensure our safety. Just as long as that safety does not involve investing in the future of groups of people that we have already labeled as ‘monsters’ or ‘evil’. The use of those terms is low-hanging fruit for fearmongers, allowing an arbitrary, and largely fantastical, definition of a word to become the reasoning for disallowing a person to grow beyond what is ofttimes a single, horrible decision on a single, horrible day.  

As it stands, long prison sentences do nothing to actually make Michigan safer. They are not a deterrent to crime, quite obviously, and only function to punish without recourse. We only talk the rehabilitative game. 

Kudos to the Michigan Supreme Court for the current decision, but it does little to address the larger, systemic issues in sentencing in Michigan. As a society, allowing this decision to alleviate whatever pangs of guilt are felt whenever we see that our courts, much like an overzealous bartender, over serve justice to the cheers of voters is dangerous. I fear most people would agree with Chief Justice Clement’s dissent.