Download or read book Life Without Parole written by Charles J. Ogletree and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-06-04 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is life without parole the perfect compromise to the death penalty? Or is it as ethically fraught as capital punishment? This comprehensive, interdisciplinary anthology treats life without parole as “the new death penalty.” Editors Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. and Austin Sarat bring together original work by prominent scholars in an effort to better understand the growth of life without parole and its social, cultural, political, and legal meanings. What justifies the turn to life imprisonment? How should we understand the fact that this penalty is used disproportionately against racial minorities? What are the most promising avenues for limiting, reforming, or eliminating life without parole sentences in the United States? Contributors explore the structure of life without parole sentences and the impact they have on prisoners, where the penalty fits in modern theories of punishment, and prospects for (as well as challenges to) reform.
Download or read book A Life for a Life written by Michael Dow Burkhead and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a new look at the intense public debate surrounding the death penalty in the United States, this book explores the various trends in public opinion that influence crime prevention efforts, create public policy, and reform criminal law. It examines eight core issues about the use of execution: cruel and unusual punishment, discrimination, deterrence, due process, culpability, scripture, innocence, and justice. It provides a brief history of capital punishment in the United States from the earliest known execution at the Jamestown Colony in 1608 to executions occurring as recently as 2008. Additional topics include the regionalization of capital punishment sentences, the spiritual and scriptural debate over the death penalty, the role of DNA evidence in modern execution sentences, and the ongoing effects of Furman v. Georgia, McClesky v. Kemp, Baze v. Rees, and other related court rulings.
Download or read book Life without Parole written by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-06-04 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is life without parole the perfect compromise to the death penalty? Or is it as ethically fraught as capital punishment? This comprehensive, interdisciplinary anthology treats life without parole as “the new death penalty.” Editors Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. and Austin Sarat bring together original work by prominent scholars in an effort to better understand the growth of life without parole and its social, cultural, political, and legal meanings. What justifies the turn to life imprisonment? How should we understand the fact that this penalty is used disproportionately against racial minorities? What are the most promising avenues for limiting, reforming, or eliminating life without parole sentences in the United States? Contributors explore the structure of life without parole sentences and the impact they have on prisoners, where the penalty fits in modern theories of punishment, and prospects for (as well as challenges to) reform.
Download or read book Life Imprisonment written by Dirk van Zyl Smit and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life imprisonment has replaced the death penalty as the most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide. Consequently, it has become the leading issue of international criminal justice reform. In the first survey of its kind, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton argue for a human rights–based reappraisal of this harsh punishment.
Download or read book Death by Prison written by Christopher Seeds and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In recent decades, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP) has developed into a distinctive penal form in the United States, one firmly entrenched in US policy-making, judicial and prosecutorial decision-making, correctional practice, and public discourse. LWOP is now a routine part of contemporary US criminal justice, even engrained in the nation's cultural imaginary, but how it came to be so remains in question. Fifty years ago, imprisoning a person until death was an extraordinary sentence; today, it accounts for an increasing percentage of all US prisoners. What explains the shifts in penal practice and the social imagination by which we have become accustomed to imprisoning individuals until death without any reevaluation or reasonable expectation of release? Combining a wide historical lens with detailed state- and institutional-level research, Death by Prison offers a provocative new foundation for questioning this deeply problematic practice that has escaped close scrutiny for too long. The rise of life without parole, this book demonstrates, is not simply a matter of growth: it is a phenomenon of change, inclusive of changes in definitions, practices, and meanings. Death by Prison shows that the complex processes by which life without parole became imprisonment until death and perpetual confinement became a routine part of American punishment must be understood not only in terms of punitive attitudes and political efforts but as a matter of background conditions and transformations in penal institutions. The book also reveals how the social and sociological relevance of life without parole extends beyond its punitive element: imbued in the history of life without parole are a variety of forms of disregard--for human dignity, for social consequences, and for the myriad responsibilities that go along with state punishment"--
Download or read book A Life and Death Decision written by Scott E. Sundby and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping exploration of a jury's members' perspectives on the most wrenching decision: the death sentence With a life in the balance, a jury convicts a man of murder and now has to decide whether he should be put to death. Twelve people now face a momentous choice. Bringing drama to life, A Life and Death Decision gives unique insight into how a jury deliberates. We feel the passions, anger, and despair as the jurors grapple with legal, moral, and personal dilemmas. The jurors' voices are compelling. From the idealist to the "holdout," the individual stories—of how and why they voted for life or death—drive the narrative. The reader is right there siding with one or another juror in this riveting read. From movies to novels to television, juries fascinate. Focusing on a single case, Sundby sheds light on broader issues, including the roles of race, class, and gender in the justice system. With death penalty cases consistently in the news, this is an important window on how real jurors deliberate about a pressing national issue.
Download or read book Taking Life Imprisonment Seriously written by Kenneth G. Zysk and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2002-04-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life imprisonment is a complex and drastic penal sanction. It gives the State the power to curtail the liberty of offenders for the rest of their lives. In many jurisdictions life imprisonment is the ultimate sanction for the most serious crimes. It is frequently touted as an alternative to the death penalty. At the same time, life imprisonment is often imposed as a preventive measure, where the offence alone does not justify using the ultimate sanction in the penal arsenal. The complexity of life imprisonment is frequently overlooked. Often it is assumed that it is not as drastic as it sounds, as it will not be enforced for the whole life of the offender. There may also be a reluctance to subject life imprisonment to close scrutiny, lest its perceived suitability as an alternative to the death penalty be undermined. This book tackles the complexity of life imprisonment head on by describing how various forms of it are imposed and implemented in the United States of America, in England and Wales and in Germany, as well as in the emerging international system of criminal justice. From this basis it examines the justifications advanced for life imprisonment and the modifications that have resulted in individual jurisdictions in response to criticisms of its imposition and implementation. At the same time, the book develops a more general critique of life imprisonment. It evaluates it against constitutional human rights standards that have been developed in many jurisdictions to judge the acceptability of punishment generally. It concludes that some current practices in both the imposition and implementation of life imprisonment clearly are fundamentally unacceptable, but that questions remain, even about carefully implemented life sentences imposed for the most serious crimes. The jurisprudential analysis provides the basis for a major re-evaluation of life imprisonment and raises doubts about the unquestioning acceptance of this ultimate penalty.
Download or read book Life Imprisonment written by Alan Baker and published by Waterside Press. This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **Winner of a Koestler Trust Silver Award*** and the only book of its kind by a serving lifer. Contains a Foreword by Tim Newell, former Prison Governor life-sentence expert. A snapshot of the most severe sentence available in the UK which treats key topics in 40 easy to read sections. Alan Baker's personal selection and treatment of topics of concern to life-sentenced prisoners looks at subjects across the life-sentence regime. Ranging from the realisation which 'kicks in' after being sentenced in the dock-shock, numbness, hopelessness-to the intrinsic nature of long-term imprisonment, it is an explanatory handbook and survivor's guide. Life Imprisonment looks at aspects of long-term imprisonment from inside the head of a lifer: daily preoccupations, the uncertainty about when he or she will be released, the long years ahead, time for reflection, work towards release, setbacks and coping mechanisms and staying out of trouble. It tells about how a life sentence leads to risk assessments, courses, reports, psychological tests and possibly a period in a therapeutic community and/or a resettlement prison. To this first-hand knowledge, Alan Baker adds his thoughts on the state of the prisons, having experienced first-hand the impact that the justice system has on have on someone serving a sentence with no fixed end date. The result is a book packed with useful information as well as an insider's perspective on the major concerns of life-sentenced prisoners, whether about their sentence, future, their victims or the (often greatly magnified) minutiae of prison life. Review 'A hard-hitting set of survival notes from someone writing with great experience of having walked the walk. It is grounded in reality ... Alan Baker writes with sound practical advice and insight which is not for the feint-hearted. He takes prison seriously, recognising it as the place you don't want to be' Tim Newell (From the Foreword).
Download or read book When I Die They ll Send Me Home written by Human Rights Watch (Organization) and published by Human Rights Watch. This book was released on 2008 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Methodology -- Recommendations -- To the Governor of California -- To the California State Legislature -- To state and county officials -- To state judges -- To California District Attorneys -- To defense attorneys -- Teenagers sentenced to die in California prisons -- Why youth are serving life without parole in California -- Crimes that result in a life without parole sentence -- Unjust results -- Many youth sentenced to life without parole did not actually kill -- The worst racial disparity in the nation -- County sentencing practices differ -- Influence of peers -- Adult codefendants -- Legal representation that compromises justice -- The late teens and early twenties : a dramatic period for personal growth -- Teens' unique potential for change -- Personal experience of change -- Life inside prison -- Fear and violence -- Barriers to rehabilitative opportunities -- The financial cost of sentencing youth to life without parole in California -- The perspectives of victims -- What those serving life without parole want to say to the families of their victims.
Download or read book Exploring the Mandatory Life Sentence for Murder written by Barry Mitchell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-19 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Murder is often regarded as both the 'ultimate' and a unique crime, and whereas courts are normally given discretion in sentencing offenders, for murder the sentence is mandatory – indeterminate imprisonment. Since the crime and the punishment come as a 'package deal' this book looks at both the legal nature of the offence and at the current operation of the mandatory life sentence. Not only does the book adopt a critical approach, by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the status quo, it also draws upon comparative material from both common and civil law jurisdictions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive exploration of these issues. The need for public confidence in the criminal justice system is particularly acute in the way it deals with the most serious homicides. In this book the authors report findings from the first systematic exploration of public attitudes to sentencing murder in this or any other common law jurisdiction. The picture of public opinion emerging from this recent large-scale nationwide qualitative and quantitative survey, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is likely to surprise many, and will be of interest to all jurisdictions where the mandatory life sentence for murder has been questioned.
Download or read book Life Without Parole written by Ross Kleinstuber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an in-depth critical examination of all pertinent aspects of life without parole (LWOP). Empirically assessing key arguments that advance LWOP, including as an alternative to the death penalty, it reveals that not only is the punishment cruel while not providing any societal benefits, it is actually detrimental to society. Over the last 30 years, LWOP has exploded in the United States. While the use of capital punishment over that same time period has declined, it must be recognized that LWOP is, in fact, a hidden death sentence. It is, however, implemented in a way that allows society to largely ignore this truth. While capital punishment has rightfully been subject to intense debate and scholarship, LWOP has mostly escaped such scrutiny. In fact, LWOP has been touted by both death penalty abolitionists and by tough-on-crime conservatives, which has allowed it to flourish under the radar. Specifically, abolitionists have advanced LWOP as a palatable alternative to capital punishment, which they perceive as inhumane, error-prone, costly, and racially biased. Conservatives, meanwhile, advocate for LWOP as an effective means of fighting crime, a just form of retribution, and necessary tool for managing incorrigible offenders. This book seeks to tap into and help inform this growing debate by subjecting these key arguments to empirical scrutiny. The results of those analyses fail to produce any evidence in support of any of those various justifications and therefore suggest that LWOP should be abolished and replaced with life sentences that come with parole eligibility after a maximum of 25 years. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology and criminal justice and will also have crossover appeal into the fields of law, political science, and sociology. It will also appeal to criminal justice professionals, lawmakers, activists, and attorneys, as well as death penalty abolitionists, opponents of mass incarceration, advocates for sentencing reform, and supporters of prisoners’ rights.
Download or read book The Meaning of Life written by Marc Mauer and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I can think of no authors more qualified to research the complex impact of life sentences than Marc Mauer and Ashley Nellis. They have the expertise to track down the information that all citizens need to know and the skills to translate that research into accessible and powerful prose." —Heather Ann Thompson, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Blood in the Water From the author of the classic Race to Incarcerate, a forceful and necessary argument for eliminating life sentences, including profiles of six people directly impacted by life sentences by formerly incarcerated author Kerry Myers Most Western democracies have few or no people serving life sentences, yet here in the United States more than 200,000 people are sentenced to such prison terms. Marc Mauer and Ashley Nellis of The Sentencing Project argue that there is no practical or moral justification for a sentence longer than twenty years. Harsher sentences have been shown to have little effect on crime rates, since people "age out" of crime—meaning that we're spending a fortune on geriatric care for older prisoners who pose little threat to public safety. Extreme punishment for serious crime also has an inflationary effect on sentences across the spectrum, helping to account for severe mandatory minimums and other harsh punishments. A thoughtful and stirring call to action, The Meaning of Life also features moving profiles of a half dozen people affected by life sentences, written by former "lifer" and award-winning writer Kerry Myers. The book will tie in to a campaign spearheaded by The Sentencing Project and offers a much-needed road map to a more humane criminal justice system.
Download or read book A Life for a Life written by James A. Paluch and published by Roxbury Publishing Company. This book was released on 2004 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "James A. Paluch, Jr. is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. In this remarkably perceptive book, he Offers the reader an account of the daily realities of prison life in its mundane essentials, from the culture of the cellblock to the etiquette of the yard and the mess hall. This book also highlights concepts of prisonization, institutionalization, and the community, as well as the nature of modern punishment."--Back cover.
Download or read book The Forgotten Men written by Margaret E. Leigey and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-08 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today there are approximately fifty thousand prisoners in American prisons serving life without parole, having been found guilty of crimes ranging from murder and rape to burglary, carjacking, and drug offences. In The Forgotten Men, criminologist Margaret E. Leigey provides an insightful account of a group of aging inmates imprisoned for at least twenty years, with virtually no chance of release. These men make up one of the most marginalized segments of the contemporary U.S. prison population. Considered too dangerous for rehabilitation, ignored by prison administrators, and overlooked by courts disinclined to review such sentences, these prisoners grow increasingly cut off from family and the outside world. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-five such prisoners, Leigey gives voice to these extremely marginalized inmates and offers a look at how they struggle to cope. She reveals, for instance, that the men believe that permanent incarceration is as inhumane as capital punishment, calling life without parole “the hard death penalty.” Indeed, after serving two decades in prison, some wished that they had received the death penalty instead. Leigey also recounts the ways in which the prisoners attempt to construct meaningful lives inside the bleak environment where they will almost certainly live out their lives. Every state in the union (except Alaska) has the life-without-parole sentencing option, despite its controversial nature and its staggering cost to the taxpayer. The Forgotten Men provides a much-needed analysis of the policies behind life-without-parole sentencing, arguing that such sentences are overused and lead to serious financial and ethical dilemmas.
Download or read book Normalizing Extreme Imprisonment written by Marion Vannier and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-04 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical, theoretical, and empirical examination of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP) is long overdue. This book presents a unique case study of the 'normalization' of LWOP. More specifically, it explores the ties between LWOP's normalization and death penalty abolitionism, using California as a case study. Drawing on rich empirical research, it brings together relevant literature in criminology, the sociology of punishment, social policy, and sentencing to provide insights into the nature of American penal politics, the role of progressive pressure groups, and the relationship between life imprisonment and capital punishment. This study investigates the extent to which members of civil society who challenge capital punishment (lawyers, non-profit organizations, and lobbyists) have helped normalize LWOP by fostering the belief that it is humane and merciful. The monograph focuses on three domains where anti-death penalty activists have lobbied, campaigned, pled for, and agreed to LWOP; Congress, the political sphere, and courtrooms. For each domain, the book teases out the motivations of the main actors and agencies involved. It analyses the constraints under which they considered themselves to be operating, and the relationship between these motivations and the broad social, legal, and political environment in which they unfolded. Particular attention is paid to actors' understandings of the concepts of 'life' and 'death' in punishment. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Download or read book Too Easy to Keep written by Steve Herbert and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Some guys don’t break any rules. They do their jobs, they go to school, they don’t commit any infractions, they keep their cells clean and tidy, and they follow the rules. And usually those are our LWOPs [life without parole]. They’re usually our easiest keepers.” Too Easy to Keep directs much-needed attention toward a neglected group of American prisoners—the large and growing population of inmates serving life sentences. Drawing on extensive interviews with lifers and with prison staff, Too Easy to Keep charts the challenges that a life sentence poses—both to the prisoners and to the staffers charged with caring for them. Surprisingly, many lifers show remarkable resilience and craft lives of notable purpose. Yet their eventual decline will pose challenges to the institutions that house them. Rich in data, Too Easy to Keep illustrates the harsh consequences of excessive sentences and demonstrates a keen need to reconsider punishment policy.
Download or read book Right Here Right Now written by Lynden Harris and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Upon receiving his execution date, one of the thousands of men living on death row in the United States had an epiphany: “All there ever is, is this moment. You, me, all of us, right here, right now, this minute, that's love.” Right Here, Right Now collects the powerful, first-person stories of dozens of men on death rows across the country. From childhood experiences living with poverty, hunger, and violence to mental illness and police misconduct to coming to terms with their executions, these men outline their struggle to maintain their connection to society and sustain the humanity that incarceration and its daily insults attempt to extinguish. By offering their hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, failures, and wounds, the men challenge us to reconsider whether our current justice system offers actual justice or simply perpetuates the social injustices that obscure our shared humanity.
