Still Life: Current Estimates of Life, LWOP, and Virtual Life Sentences across the U.S.

• In Event: Life Sentencing in America: Current Trends and New Avenues of Research

Abstract

Life sentences have become a common fixture of the American criminal justice system. For a variety of reasons that are explored in this paper, states increasingly rely on decades-long incapacitation, sometimes lasting to the end of life, as a favored public safety tool for serious offenders. This paper updates calculations from 2012 on the prevalence of life sentences (both with parole and without parole) around the country, and incorporates a first-ever comprehensive estimate of “virtual life sentences” to measure the use of sentences amounting to 50 years or more. The paper concludes with recommendations for scaling back the overuse of life and virtual life sentences in the U.S.

Author

• Ashley Marie Nellis, The Sentencing Project