Should People Who Commit Crimes Be Allowed To Plea Bargain?

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As I read an article in my local paper updating the case of a 19 year-old teen murdered and robbed by two close friends it caused me to rethink this issue of plea bargaining. I am not sure if I am in favor of this legal practice? As I mentioned, this crime involved two childhood friends, one who decided to rob this girl, the other who choose to aid his friend in hiding and then disposing of her body. I happen to know the father of the girl involved and have socializied with the family in the past. I know this plays a big role in my feelings, but plea bargaining in this case seems so unjust to me. Let me provide you with a little background of the case to see what you think. The teen who murdered her was also 19 and learned through their friendship she was going to withdraw $10,000 dollars to take on a trip overseas to a bloggers convention. He actually accompanied her to the bank when she made the withdrawal. Anyway, he broke into the house to steal the cash, but the girl was home, so he strangled her, took the money, and called the other teen (his close friend) for assistance. The two teens worked out a plan to make it look like a suicide, by hiding her body in the yard from neighbor detection, taking two cars (one hers) to a bridge, and throwing the young woman off it. In addition, he helped his friend hide the cash by burying it an an undisclosed location until the police ended their investigation. At least that's what I would assume. The case finally broke when the young man who committed the murder bragged to another friend on his cell phone how he strangled her, and watched as it took 30 minutes for the teen to die. He forgot to erase the cell records/recording and his friend notified the authorities who confiscated the cell phone as evidence. The case is about to finally go to trial and the prosecution decided to offer a plea deal to the boy who helped the alleged murderer. For his testimony against his friend the lawyers agreed to a 30 year sentence with eligibility for parole after 20 years for good behavior. I have a problem with this sentence on many levels. This 20 year-old teen willingly assisted in a cover up. He actually helped the community search for the missing girl's body to draw any suspicion away from him, since it might look unusual, because they dated and he took her to the Senior Prom. Her body, after six months now, has still not been found. This 20 year-old young man will have an opportunity to be released from prison at 40. He still can have some kind of productive life ahead upon release. I think this sentence is too light . If I was the father I don't think I would be happy about this. His daughter will never have a chance to live her life.