No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row

This book was extremely powerful. It was not only because it was a story about teenagers on a death row, but also the voices of the teenagers. They weren't asking for forgiveness, but for the people to listen to their stories and hearts.
It shows the life of teenagers tried as adults and put on death row or life in prison without parole. Through the author's successful research and interview, we get to know these teens and how their lives are behind bars. I found the conversations from victim's families very thoughtful and let get their perspective as well.
After reading this book i got particularly interested in the status of death penalty for juvenile offenders in the U.S. and world wide. The following is some of the foundings.

According to Juvenile Justice Center (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~rm273001/Juvenile.pdf),
the death penalty for juvenile offenders is becoming a uniquely American practice, in that it has been abandoned legally by most nations due to the express provisions of the United National Convention on the Rights of the Child and of several other international treaties and agreements.

Since 2000, only five countries in the world are known to have executed juvenile offenders: China, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iran, Pakistan, and the United States. Pakistan and China have abolished the juvenile death penalty, but there have been problems in nationwide compliance with the law.

It's lamentable that the United States is truly the only western industrialized nation who still practices juvenile execution, and it is time that the U.S. reviewed constitutionality and decency of the system.