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Expanding ranks of Texas lifers part of national trend

There's been lots of good discussion, some of it rounded up by Doc Berman here, of a new report from the Sentencing Project titled "No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America" (pdf), so I thought I'd pull out a few highlights and Texas specifics:Texas has both life sentences which are eligible for parole (most of them) and also life without parole (LWOP). The latter in Texas is only a sentencing option in capital murder cases and as of 2008, just 71 Texans had received LWOP sentences, according to the report, while 8,558 offenders (6.1% of TDCJ's total inmate population) were serving life sentences in Texas adult prisons but will ultimately be eligible for parole. "However," as the Sentencing Project correctly notes, "eligibility does not equate to release and, owing to the reticence of review boards and governors, it has become increasingly difficult for persons serving a life sentence to be released on parole...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on July 23, 2009 (boomark / email).