Cyntoia Brown's case back in the spotlight after Rihanna, Kim Kardashian West speak out

Marsha Levick, the deputy director and chief counsel of the nonprofit Juvenile Law Center, said Brown is far from the only juvenile offender to have received a harsh sentence.

"My hope for cases like Cyntoia's is to just literally try to change the paradigm," Levick told ABC News. "When someone is a child, when someone has had the experiences Cyntoia had, our system needs to be able to reflect that and to recognize that. Otherwise, I think we lose our sense of humanity."