![]() Racial disparities are omnipresent in the criminal justice system but are even more pronounced among people serving life. Here’s a closer look at what The Sentencing Project study found. “To go from having all of that pressure, all of that humiliation removed just in the stroke of someone saying, ‘I think you deserve a second chance in life,’ that was probably the most amazing thing to happen in my life.” “It’s still continually sinking in that I’m no longer condemned to die in prison,” said Hudson, now the education director of the Illinois Prison Project, a criminal justice advocacy group. Pritzker began commuting some sentences, including Hudson’s. But he used his 37 years in prison to better himself, including overcoming illiteracy and mentoring other incarcerated people. ![]() Like most people sentenced to life, his crime was violent - a 1983 murder. Renaldo Hudson was one of 167 people to have their death sentences commuted to life in prison by then-Gov. The money governments would save by reducing the population of people serving life prison sentences instead could be invested in restorative justice models committed to supporting healing by survivors of crime and holding people who commit crimes accountable with empathy and compassion, the study said. The study also recommends expanding opportunities for release, prioritizing older prisoners sentenced to life considering the risk of Covid-19. The cap would create a cultural shift away from harsh sentences, as recent polling suggests most Americans think the aims of the justice system should include redemption and transformation of people who commit crimes, not mere punishment, the study said. The study recommended abolishing life without parole and limiting all life sentences to 20 years, except where a person remains a public safety risk after serving time. The result is prisons holding thousands of people beyond the age in which they’d likely commit a new crime, which comes at an exorbitant cost to taxpayers, according to the study. While state and federal lawmakers enacted the changes in response to public fears about crime, those fears stemmed from exaggerated media coverage rather than the frequency of violent crime, the study said. The increase in people serving life in prison has been driven by policy changes and revisions to the law that made sentences longer and limited parole. Today, the prison population stands at 1.4 million, with 203,865 people serving life sentences - or one in seven people, according to the study. Contrary arguments are that this penalty does not deter murderers, there is always the possibility of escape or killing a guard or fellow prisoner, or some soft-hearted Governor may someday reduce the sentence.The study, “No End in Sight: America’s Enduring Reliance on Life Imprisonment,” shows that more people are serving life in prison than were serving any sentence in 1970, before mass incarceration took hold in America, when the prison population was less than 200,000 people. It guarantees the criminal will not endanger the public, and the prospect of never being outside prison is severe punishment. Opponents of capital punishment often advocate this penalty as a substitute for execution. a sentence sometimes given for particularly vicious criminals in murder cases or to repeat felons, particularly if the crime is committed in a state which has no death penalty, the jury chooses not to impose the death penalty, or the judge feels it is simpler to lock the prisoner up and "throw away the key" rather than invite years of appeals while the prisoner languishes on death row. In the US, sentencing details differ by state. In the US, a "life sentence" does not always literally mean imprisonment for life, whereas a sentence to "life without the possibility of parole" does. I think the "three strikes" phrase was borrowed from baseball (possibly modified in the process). ![]() I am sure Peter will correct me if I got that wrong. If I recall correctly, in California, the "three strikes" law was put on the ballot after the infamous Polly Klaas murder (she was kidnapped and killed by a repeat felon) in the early 1990s. The correct phrase is "three strikes and you're out", as already mentioned by witch.
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