A sentence of life in prison is an extreme punishment, yet
these sentences are common in the United States. The Sentencing
Project has found that 1 in 7 people in prison in the U.S.
are serving a life sentence or what, by virtue of sentence length, is its
equivalent. There are more people sentenced to die in prison than there were
people in prison in the early 1970s.
Pennsylvania is one of the worst U.S. states on the matter
of life without parole sentences. There are more
than 5,300 people in prison for life in the state. (In absolute
numbers, only Florida has more people in prison for life.) These sentences have
been incredibly concentrated, with more than half of those people sentenced in
Philadelphia. And while life without parole sentences have been used
disproportionately against Black and Latinx people across the country,
Pennsylvania is even worse
than the national average on this measure.
These numbers are the product of the tough-on-crime
sentencing laws that swept the nation in the ’80s. In commentary for
the Inquirer in January, Ashley Nellis of the Sentencing Project and co-author
of “The
Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences,” identified three
sets of laws that contribute to Pennsylvania’s flood of life sentences. First,
a life sentence in Pennsylvania is automatically a life without parole
sentence. (It is one of only five states where parole is not available for
anyone sentenced to life in prison.) Second, life sentences are automatic for
anyone convicted of first- or second-degree murder. This includes felony
murder, in which a person who is considered an accomplice to murder but did not
kill anyone, which is second-degree murder. Finally, the state charges children
as young as 14 as adults, resulting in, as Nellis wrote, “the nation’s—and the
world’s—largest population of lifers who were juveniles at the time of their
offense.”
The problem has been clear for some time. State lawmakers
have introduced bills to restore parole
eligibility for some people sentenced to life in prison. There have
also been legislative efforts to address the injustice of felony murder sentencing.
These bills have not yet passed in the legislature.
At the local level, in Philadelphia at least, there has been
an attempt to correct the practice of overcharging that contributed to so many
people being sentenced to death in prison. For too long, at the local level,
district attorneys have used harsh sentences as a tool to extract pleas and
have made bringing the highest charges possible the default. These charging
decisions, made by prosecutors with full information about sentence lengths (unlike
jurors, who lack this information at trial), make extremely long sentences the
norm. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is trying to change
this, introducing a policy of carefully considering the full spectrum of
charges available in homicide cases and evaluating which is most appropriate on
a case-by-case basis.
These necessary efforts all address the front-end and the flow
into the prison system. But as is the case nationally, it is important to
couple these efforts with mechanisms to release
the people who are already in prison. In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov.
Fetterman, chairperson of the state Board of Pardons, has made restarting
the clemency process, including
for people convicted of violent crimes, a priority. Since Governor Tom Wolf
took office, he has granted commutations to 11
people who had been sentenced to die in prison. In September, the
Pennsylvania Board of Pardons recommended
commutations for nine people in prison for life. In Philadelphia, the
DA’s office Conviction
Review Unit examines cases for unjust sentencing as well as wrongful
convictions.
The work to address Pennsylvania’s incarceration system has
been underway for a long time. The movements that propelled Krasner to
Philadelphia DA have also envisioned the review
of extreme sentences. People who have lost loved ones both to homicides and
to the prison system have described themselves as “dual
victims” and called for an end to life without parole sentences.
Last year, the Philadelphia-based Abolitionist Law Center
issued a
report on life without parole sentences in Pennsylvania and
recommendations for ending the practice.
“The situation of permanent imprisonment for more than 5,300
people in Pennsylvania is untenable,” the authors wrote. “It does not have to
be this way. In the vast majority of the world, it is not. DBI [death by
incarceration] sentences are another peculiarly U.S.-based phenomenon. Around
much of the world such sentences are not permitted, and where they are they are
not imposed at anywhere near the levels that they are imposed in this country.
The racial demographics of DBI sentences are a scandal and a human rights
travesty.”
And these sentences do not just affect people in prison.
They afflict families and cripple communities. “The consequences of DBI
sentencing extend far beyond the prison walls,” the authors continued. “The
total absence of redemptive opportunity hardens punitive attitudes in society
by legitimating the most destructive and divisive impulses within people: fear,
vengeance, racism, and cruelty.”
To fight to end death by incarceration sentences, they
wrote, is also to fight for a society ordered around different values.
“Ultimately, the fight to abolish DBI sentences is a fight over what type of
society we want to live in, whether we will organize around values of
restoration and redemption and healing or continue down the path of fear and
stigma and vengeance. The fight is about how much injustice people will
tolerate from the government.”
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