"As chaplains we absorb people’s sadness, their brokenness, their depth of spiritual despair," says Dennis Gibbs, an Episcopal chaplain at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles. "In many ways we hold for these inmates what they cannot hold for themselves."

On November 9, a divided Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases about just punishment for juveniles convicted of non-homicide offenses. Are life sentences imposed on juvenile offenders cruel and unusual?

The US is the only Western democracy that still sentences youthful offenders to life in prison without parole for serious crimes. But there is growing resistance to that.

Right now, 36 states permit capital punishment for murder. Should that penalty be extended to those who rape children?