It should not be legal to hand out life sentences to minors, period.
In Germany the maximum sentence for minors is 10 years and depending on your developmental state you can count as a minor until you are 21 (You are always treated as one if you are under 18). And that is how it should be. Locking people up for life helps nobody.
Importantly you need to trace the execs who copied it, not the ones who decided to try it the first time. Giving things a try and not immediately throwing it away when it isn’t perfect is a good thing and behavior that needs to be encouraged. The problem is when others start copying it blindly because it is new before it could demonstrate benefits. It’s the people jumping on hype that are the problem, not the people giving new things a try, even if they may fail.