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Use of Life Sentences Continues to Increase

By Michael Blankenship

More prisoners today are serving life terms than ever before ? 140,610 out of 2.3 million inmates being held in jails and prisons across the country ? under tough mandatory minimum-sentencing laws and the declining use of parole for eligible convicts, according to a report released Wednesday by the Sentencing Project, a group that calls for the elimination of life sentences without parole. The report tracks the increase in life sentences from 1984, when the number of inmates serving life terms was 34,000.Read more...A number of factors are driving the increase in the number of people serving life sentences, but an increase in the violent crime rate is not one of them. A number of policies - "three-strikes," determinate sentencing, juvenile waivers - all have an underlying common denominator - the politics of "get tough" on crime...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Justice Gambit on July 23, 2009 (boomark / email).