Faculty Colloquium: Debra Parkes - Rethinking the Constitutionality of Life Sentences for Youth

Event Description

The life sentence is an extraordinary and grave sentence. Yet it has become normalized within Canadian legal, social, and political discourse, even when applied to young people whose diminished moral responsibility is constitutionally recognized. This paper argues that it is time to revisit and fundamentally rethink the constitutionality of imposing life sentences on youth. Drawing on the 2025 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R v I.M. affirming a high burden of proof for imposing adult sentences on youth, the paper discusses relevant constitutional principles and evidence about the lived experience and impact of life sentences that should inform the limits of state punishment. It demonstrates how such sentences perpetuate harm and undermine stated penal objectives, highlighting the enduring nature of the life sentence, a reality rarely considered in decisions to impose life sentences on youth. Even where parole is granted, individuals sentenced as youth remain under the weight of the sentence for life, constrained by ongoing supervision and the perpetual threat (and reality) of re-incarceration. These harms have never been meaningfully measured against the stated objectives of lifelong punishment and relevant constitutional principles. This paper contends that genuine compliance with these principles requires a constitutional re-examination of life sentences for youth and a broader reconsideration of the place of the life sentence in Canadian law. 

For Zoom info, email Kris Neufeld at: eventassistant@allard.ubc.ca. 

Speaker

Professor Parkes joined the Allard School of Law in July 2016. She was a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba from 2001 to 2016 where she served a term as Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) from 2013-2016. She has also been a visiting researcher at the University of Woollongong and the University of Sydney. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law from 2009-2013 and President of the Canadian Law & Society Association from 2007-2010.
 
Professor Parkes' scholarly work examines the challenges and possibilities of addressing societal injustices through rights claims, with a focus on the criminal justice, corrections, and workplace contexts. The lens she brings to this work is feminist, intersectional, and socio-legal. Professors Parkes takes a particular interest in the incarceration of women, the limits of prison reform, and the framing and adjudicating of prisoners’ rights claims.