Life Without Parole
States Offering Life Without Parole - See Below
Years That States Adopted LWOP
Life Without Parole News and Developments - Current Year
Life Without Parole News and Developments - Previous Years
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
* Note that "three strikes" laws in some states may make life without parole available for at least some offenders in those states. |
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Serving Life documents an extraordinary hospice program where hardened criminals care for dying fellow inmates. Narrated and executive produced by Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker, the film takes viewers inside Louisiana's maximum security prison at Angola, where the average sentence is more than 90 years. Premiered on OWN Thursday, July 28. Read more: http://www.oprah.com/own-doc-club/Serving-Life-Trailer#ixzz1USJAS6uK
Fact Sheet on prison killings from Equal Justice USA.
"Death Penalty Not Needed to Prevent Prison Murder." Death Penalty Focus
M. Mauer and K. Epstein, editors, "To Build a Better Criminal Justice System," The Sentencing Project (2012). Features 25 essays on the future of America's criminal justice system, written by academics, advocates, and other experts.
A. Nellis and R. King, No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences In America, The Sentencing Project (2009). Read a summary by DPIC.
R. Johnson and A. Dobrzanska, "Mature coping among life-sentenced inmates: an exploratory study of adjustment dynamics," Corrections Compendium. (November 2005).
A. Liptak, "To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars," New York Times, October 2, 2005.
DPIC Summary: The Sentencing Project's Report, "The Meaning of 'Life': Long Prison Sentences in Context" (2004).
Sentencing for Life: Americans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty (DPIC Report 1993).
M. Lane, "Is there life without parole? A capital defendant's right to a meaningful alternative sentence," 26 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 327 (1993).
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"Given my experience, I believe there are three compelling reasons why the death penalty should be replaced. (1) The criminal justice system makes mistakes and the possibility of executing innocent people is both inherently wrong and morally reprehensible; (2) My personal experience and crime data show the death penalty does not reduce crime; and (3) The death penalty wastes precious resources that could be best used to fight crime and solve thousands of unsolved homicides languishing in filing cabinets in understaffed police departments across the state."
“[T]here’s no chance California’s death penalty can ever be fixed. The millions wasted on this broken system would be much better spent keeping teachers, police and firefighters on their jobs.”
“Had I known then what we do today, I would have pushed for strong life sentences without the possibility of parole. I still believe that society must be protected from the most heinous criminals, and that they don't deserve to ever again be free. But I'd like to see them serve their terms with the general prison population, where they could be required to work and pay restitution into the victims' compensation fund.”
"The death penalty serves no one. It doesn't serve the victims. It doesn't serve prevention. It's truly all about retribution....There comes a time when you have to ask if a penalty that is so permanent can be available in such an imperfect system. The only guarantee against executing the innocent is to do away with the death penalty."
"I now understand that the death penalty is an ineffective, cruel and simplistic response to the complex problem of violent crime. Our limited resources could be better spent on programs that focus on stopping violence before it starts, such as preventing child abuse and drug addiction – programs that will prevent another child from becoming the next [murderer]."
"I was a supporter and believer in the death penalty, but I've begun to see that this system doesn't work and it isn't functional. It costs an obscene amount of money."