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The Sentencing Project's Report on Lifers in Prison

By Steve Hall

The Sentencing Project report, "No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences In America," states that 1 in 11 prisoners are now serving life sentences.  A summary of the report is here.  Here's an excerpt:A new report released by The Sentencing Project finds a record 140,610 individuals are now serving life sentences in state and federal prisons, 6,807 of whom were juveniles at the time of the crime. In addition, 29% of persons serving a life sentence (41,095) have no possibility of parole, and 1,755 were juveniles at the time of the crime. No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America represents the first nationwide collection of life sentence data documenting race, ethnicity and gender. The report's findings reveal overwhelming racial and ethnic disparities in the allocation of life sentences: 66% of all persons sentenced to life are non-white, and 77% of juveniles serving life sentences are non-white...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on July 22, 2009 (boomark / email).