A report released in May, 2004 by The Sentencing Project, ​“The Meaning of ​‘Life’: Long Prison Sentences in Context,” doc­u­ments a dra­mat­ic increase in the num­ber of pris­on­ers serv­ing life with­out parole sen­tences and demon­strates that pris­on­ers are serv­ing increas­ing­ly longer terms of incar­cer­a­tion. Findings in the report include the following:

  • Of the lif­ers in prison, one in four (26.3%) is serv­ing a sen­tence of life with­out parole, hav­ing increased from one in six (17.8%) in 1992.
  • In six states – Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota – all life sen­tences are imposed with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.
  • Seven states – Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – have more than 1,000 pris­on­ers each serv­ing sen­tences of life without parole.
  • The increase in prison time for lif­ers is a result of changes in state pol­i­cy and not due to increas­es in violent crime.

LIFE WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAROLE

In Louisiana and Pennsylvania one of every ten pris­on­ers is serv­ing a life sen­tence, which in those states means life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

Four states – Alaska, Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas – have no inmates serv­ing life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, while Louisiana leads the nation with the high­est per­cent­age of inmates serv­ing life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole — 10.6%. Note: Texas holds the sec­ond largest num­ber of peo­ple on death row in the nation; Kansas recent­ly adopt­ed a sen­tence of life without parole.

LIFE MEANS LIFE

In Georgia, the Board of Pardons and Paroles report­ed in 1998 that more life-sen­tenced inmates had died in prison that year than had been paroled. According to Parole Board Chair Walter Ray, ​“There’s a pop­u­lar mis­con­cep­tion that life in prison doesn’t mean all of one’s nat­ur­al life. In just the last year, there are 21 Georgia lif­ers who are no longer around to tell you oth­er­wise. If they could, they’d let you know that parole for a life sen­tence is a rare commodity.”

MENTALLY ILL OFFENDERS

Research con­duct­ed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics doc­u­ments that one of every six peo­ple in prison has a his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness. These fig­ures are even more pro­nounced among the pop­u­la­tion of lif­ers, with near­ly one in five lif­ers (18.4%) hav­ing a his­to­ry men­tal ill­ness, total­ing an esti­mat­ed 23,523 life-sentenced prisoners.

LIFE SENTENCES FOR JUVENILES

Over the past decade, an increas­ing num­ber of states has adopt­ed laws mak­ing it eas­i­er to try juve­niles in adult court. As a result, crimes com­mit­ted by young peo­ple can now result in much harsh­er pun­ish­ments, includ­ing life sen­tences. While there are present­ly no nation­al data on the num­ber of such lif­er cas­es, they are clear­ly increas­ing in many states. A recent report doc­u­ments that just in the state of Michigan alone, there are at least 146 per­sons serv­ing life with­out parole for crimes com­mit­ted when they were 14 – 16 years old.

- Marc Mauer, Ryan S. King, and Malcolm C. Young, ​“The Meaning of ​‘Life’: Long Prison Sentences in Context”, The Sentencing Project, May 2004.