Abolish Prisons

1 in 11: The proportion of the U.S. prison population currently serving life sentences.

141,000: The number of people serving life sentences in the U.S.

29: The average number of years served by people sentenced to life in prison. This is up from 21 years in the 1990’s.

1 in 3: The number of people with life sentences who have life without parole.

2,000: The number of people serving life sentences in Mississippi. Also the number of people serving life sentences in Germany. (Mississippi’s total state population is about 2% of Germany’s total population.)

2,500: The number of people serving life without parole sentences for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18.

43,000: The number of people in California serving sentences as a result of “3 strikes and you’re out” legislation.

$19 billion: The amount of money California spends each year incarcerating 3 strikes prisoners, half of whom are incarcerated for non-violent offenses.

Life without parole is often gestured to as a humane alternative to the death penalty. But since life without parole has been increasingly used as a sentence, few potential capital punishment convictions have been “reduced” to life without parole. Instead, people who would never have received a death sentence receive more and longer life sentences. A lot of noise is made about the 3,300 people on death row in the U.S. Perhaps some noise should also be made about the 141,000 who have received the “other death sentence.”

Check out Marie Gottschalk’s excellent article on this topic for the Prison Legal News.