Life Imprisonment

Author: Dirk Van Zyl Smit
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674989112
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
Life imprisonment has replaced capital punishment as the most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide. As a consequence, it has become the leading issue in international criminal justice reform. In the first global survey of prisoners serving life terms, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton argue for a human rights–based reappraisal of this exceptionally harsh punishment. The authors estimate that nearly half a million people face life behind bars, and the number is growing as jurisdictions both abolish death sentences and impose life sentences more freely for crimes that would never have attracted capital punishment. Life Imprisonment explores this trend through systematic data collection and legal analysis, persuasively illustrated by detailed maps, charts, tables, and comprehensive statistical appendices. The central question—can life sentences be just?—is straightforward, but the answer is complicated by the vast range of penal practices that fall under the umbrella of life imprisonment. Van Zyl Smit and Appleton contend that life imprisonment without possibility of parole can never be just. While they have some sympathy for the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, they conclude that life imprisonment, in many of the ways it is implemented worldwide, infringes on the requirements of justice. They also examine the outliers—states that have no life imprisonment—to highlight the possibility of abolishing life sentences entirely. Life Imprisonment is an incomparable resource for lawyers, lawmakers, criminologists, policy scholars, and penal-reform advocates concerned with balancing justice and public safety.

The Meaning of Life

Author: Marc Mauer
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 162097410X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Book Description
"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.

After Life Imprisonment

Author: Marieke Liem
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479806927
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
"Study of over sixty homicide offenders who served long sentences before being released"--Foreword.

Life Sentence

Author: Robert LaSardo
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781496125354
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
After a long, and deeply philosophical, conversation with Robert LaSardo, I eagerly awaited this book that you are about to read. I was not disappointed. Left deep in thought, I sat in a long contemplative silence. While I always enjoyed Mr. LaSardo as an actor, I discovered I like him even better as who he is, behind the face he shows the public. Often, if you are in the public eye, you develop a persona (ego) and become someone that society, fans and publicists want you to be. You can sometimes lose aspects of yourself. The truly courageous ones overcome this through strength of character and merge the two halves of themselves to be whole. In the end, people will either love you for who you are, imperfections and all, or they will pull back, fading away because you spoiled the 'image' they had of you. It is sad that the creative person loses a part of themselves so that they can be known and make a good living. Yet, it is the love of art, writing and acting - the real, inner person we are is what made us do it in the first place - that can often become extinguished by the machine of ratings, demands of talent agents, advisers or by the shine of fame and glamour. Throughout his career, Robert LaSardo has found his niche in Hollywood, playing the devious criminal. Often evil personified in his roles, he has played the villain we love, on the award-winning series Nip/Tuck and on both CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: Miami. We also see his more recent performances in Ghost Whisperer and his own independent film Never Down, he continues to win the hearts of his audience. In Life Sentence: a true story about love, lunacy and fame, you will encounter the man behind the villain he plays, and come to understand the depth of his heart, his will and desire to accomplish despite the hardships that will make you cry. This book will make you feel the triumph of his success, as you are drawn into his life. ~ From the introduction.

Life In Prison

Author: Stanley "Tookie" Williams
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 9781587170935
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 90

Book Description
Williams, the cofounder of the Crips gang and a nominee for both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature, became an anti-gang crusader before he was executed in December 2005. In this work he debunked urban myths about prison life and challenged young people to choose the right path. Selected for the Young Adult Library Services Association's Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults list.

Life Sentences

Author: Wilbert Rideau
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
Drawing on their award-winning reporting for the Louisiana State Penitentiary's uncensored newsmagazine, The Angolite, Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg present the stark reality of life behind bars and the human, political, and fiscal costs of our long-running war on crime.

Sentence

Author: Daniel Genis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698405765
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
A memoir of a decade in prison by a well-educated young addict known as the "Apologetic Bandit" In 2003 Daniel Genis, the son of a famous Soviet émigré writer, broadcaster, and culture critic, was fresh out of NYU when he faced a serious heroin addiction that led him into debt and ultimately crime. After he was arrested for robbing people at knifepoint, he was nicknamed the “Apologetic Bandit” in the press, given his habit of expressing regret to his victims as he took their cash. He was sentenced to twelve years—ten with good behavior, a decade he survived by reading 1,046 books, taking up weightlifting, having philosophical discussions with his fellow inmates, working at a series of prison jobs, and in general observing an existence for which nothing in his life had prepared him. Genis describes in unsparing and vivid detail the realities of daily life in the New York penal system. In his journey from Rikers Island and through a series of upstate institutions, he encounters violence on an almost daily basis, while learning about the social strata of gangs, the “court” system that sets geographic boundaries in prison yards, how sex was obtained, the workings of the black market in drugs and more practical goods, the inventiveness required for everyday tasks such as cooking, and how debilitating solitary confinement actually is—all while trying to preserve his relationship with his wife, whom he recently married. Written with empathy and wit, Sentence is a strikingly powerful memoir of the brutalities of prison and how one man survived them, leaving its walls with this book inside him, “one made of pain and fear and laughter and lots of other books.”

The Forgotten Men

Author: Margaret E. Leigey
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813569494
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
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.

Life Imprisonment from Young Adulthood

Author: Ben Crewe
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 1137566019
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
This book analyses the experiences of prisoners in England & Wales sentenced when relatively young to very long life sentences (with minimum terms of fifteen years or more). Based on a major study, including almost 150 interviews with men and women at various sentence stages and over 300 surveys, it explores the ways in which long-term prisoners respond to their convictions, adapt to the various challenges that they encounter and re-construct their lives within and beyond the prison. Focussing on such matters as personal identity, relationships with family and friends, and the management of time, the book argues that long-term imprisonment entails a profound confrontation with the self. It provides detailed insight into how such prisoners deal with the everyday burdens of their situation, feelings of injustice, anger and shame, and the need to find some sense of hope, control and meaning in their lives. In doing so, it exposes the nature and consequences of the life-changing terms of imprisonment that have become increasingly common in recent years.

Doing Life

Author: Howard Zehr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
What they have done and how they cope with prison life.