Key points

Governor Newsom recently granted clemency to four youthful offenders serving life sentences.

Juvenile offenders have high rates of adverse childhood experiences.

ACEs can negatively affect the development of a child’s stress response system.

On Aug. 29, Governor Newsom announced that he had commuted the sentences for five people serving life without parole for murder. The oldest of them was 28 at the time of his crime , and the others were 18, 21, 23, and 25. In California, that puts the younger four of them in the category of youthful offenders, distinguished from adults by not yet having reached full development of key areas of the brain.

Governor Newsom’s office mentioned the adverse childhood experiences of one of the men, noting that traumatic events can affect a

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