Abolish Life without Parole?

In what is surely the type of effort that seriously undercuts one plank of the intellectual position of the capital punishment abolition movement—that life without parole is sufficient to protect the innocent from the aggressor—a report from the Sentencing Project calls for the abolition of life without parole,

This article from the Boston Globe examines this position.

An excerpt.

“OF THE 2.3 million people in prisons and jails in the United States, roughly 140,000, or 6 percent, are serving life sentences. Of that number, about 41,000 - 1.8 percent of all inmates - were sentenced to life without parole. Both numbers are at an all-time high.

“Should Americans be troubled by this? The Sentencing Project thinks so. In a new report, the liberal advocacy group complains that the growth in life sentences has been costly and unjust. It “challenges the supposition that all life sentences are necessary to keep the public safe,’’ and particularly disapproves of life without parole.

“As a matter of policy, the Sentencing Project supports abolition of both the death penalty and life without parole, an eccentric position that most Americans don’t share. Nevertheless, the group’s new report - “No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America’’ - has drawn deferential media attention, with stories appearing in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and Agence France-Press.

“But good PR is not a substitute for sound analysis.

“In its very first paragraph, “No Exit’’ asserts that the high incarceration rate is the result of “three decades of ‘tough on crime’ policies that have made little impact on crime.’’

“America’s prison population has unquestionably grown in recent years, as prison sentences have lengthened and more criminals have been locked up. But far from negligible, the “impact on crime’’ has been dramatic. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Americans experienced 44 million crimes in 1973. By 2007, that number had dropped to 23 million - and this even as the population grew by more than 75 million.

“During those “three decades of ‘tough on crime’ policies,’’ in other words, crime in America was nearly halved. Since the mid-1990s, the plunge in violent crime has been especially steep: from more than 51 crimes of violence per 1,000 US residents in 1994 to 21 in 2005 - a 59 percent reduction.”