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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/people-serving-life-exceeds-entire-prison-population-1970/">https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/people-serving-life-exceeds-entire-prison-population-1970/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">People Serving Life Exceeds Entire
Prison Population of 1970</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">February 20, 2020<br>
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<p><span><strong>This fact sheet is part of
The Sentencing Project’s <a
href="http://www.endlifeimprisonment.org/">Campaign
to End Life Imprisonment</a>. Learn
more about the facts of life
imprisonment in the United States, hear
stories of real people impacted by these
punitive policies, and discover why
#20YearsIsEnough at <a
href="http://www.endlifeimprisonment.org/">www.endlifeimprisonment.org</a>.</strong></span></p>
<hr>
<p>As states come to terms with the
consequences of 40 years of prison
expansion, sentencing reform efforts across
the country have focused on reducing stays
in prison or jail for those convicted of
nonviolent drug and property crimes. At the
same time, policymakers have largely
neglected to address the staggering number
of people serving life sentences, comprising
one of seven people in prisons nationwide.
International comparisons document the
extreme nature of these developments. The
United States now holds an estimated 40% of
the world population serving life
imprisonment and 83% of those serving life
without the possibility of parole. The
expansion of life imprisonment has been a
key component of the development of mass
incarceration.</p>
<p>In this report, we present a closer look at
the rise in life sentences amidst the
overall incarceration expansion.</p>
<p>To place the growth of life imprisonment in
perspective, the national lifer population
of 206,000 now exceeds the size of the
entire prison population in 1970, just prior
to the prison population explosion of the
following four decades. In 24 states, there
are now more people serving life sentences
than were in the entire prison population in
1970, and in an additional nine states, the
life imprisonment total is within 100 people
of the 1970 prison population.</p>
<h5>Figure 1. Comparison of Life
Sentenced-Population in 2016 to Prison
Population in 1970</h5>
<p><img
src="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/map-for-website-2.png"
alt="map for website"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="515"
height="332"></p>
<p>A misinterpretation of the connections
between the seriousness of an incarcerated
person’s crime and their recidivism risk
after release often justifies policymakers’
endorsement of life imprisonment. Most
people serving life, including for murder,
will not forever present a risk to public
safety. Even so-called “chronic-offenders,”
people who have committed repeated crimes,
gradually desist from criminal conduct so
that their public safety risk is
substantially reduced by their late 30s or
40s. Therefore, from a public safety
perspective, life imprisonment is an unwise
investment.</p>
<p>States with the largest effects are in the
South and West of the country, though the
growth in life sentences in all states has
been dramatic over these decades.</p>
<p>Figure 2 provides a view of the states
ranked by the percent difference between the
current number of life-sentenced prisoners
and the total prison population in 1970.
Nevada and Utah are at the top of the table
because these states’ current life-sentenced
populations are more than four times each
states’s entire prison population in 1970.
The next two most dramatic shifts are in
Louisiana and Alaska where their
life-sentenced populations are more than
double their overall prison populations in
1970.</p>
<h5>Figure 2. Percent Difference Between
Life-Sentenced Population in 2016 and Total
Prison Population in 1970</h5>
<p><a
href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ratio-1970-vs-2016-1.png"><img
src="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ratio-1970-vs-2016-1-744x1024.png"
width="536" height="733"></a></p>
<p>States farther down the table, such as
Ohio, show that there are 70% as many
life-sentenced prisoners today as the entire
prison population in 1970. And in Maine at
the bottom, the growth in life-sentenced
prisoners is still notable: the number of
lifers today reflects 26% of the total
prison population from 1970.</p>
<h5>Figure 3. Population Change in Prison
Population and Life-Sentenced Population,
2003-2016</h5>
<p><a
href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/population-change.png"><img
src="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/population-change-1024x731.png"
alt="population change" width="412"
height="300"></a></p>
<p>The Sentencing Project has collected
information from state departments of
corrections regarding the number of people
serving life sentences at four distinct
points in time: 2003, 2009, 2012, and 2016.
This allows us to observe trends in life
imprisonment. We find that while prison
totals have declined by 0.5% between 2003
and 2016, there has been a 30% increase in
life sentences.</p>
<p>A further troubling aspect within this rise
is that the most severe of the three
categories of life sentences— life without
the possibility of parole, or LWOP—has risen
the fastest. As illustrated in Figure 4, we
find a 59% rise in these sentences between
2003 and 2016 compared with an 18% increase
in life with the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>Reasons for the continued growth in life
sentences despite reversals in crime and
incarceration more generally point to
various “tough on crime” policies that hold
people in prison longer on their life
sentences.</p>
<h5>Figure 4. Life without Parole Growing More
Quickly Than Life with Parole, 2003-2016</h5>
<p><a
href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/lwp-v-lwop.png"><img
src="http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/lwp-v-lwop-1024x904.png"
alt="lwp v lwop" width="352"
height="306"></a></p>
<p>These include habitual offender laws,
mandatory minimums, elimination of parole,
and the transfer of juveniles to the adult
system. These policies were advanced by
legislators in the 1990s, and contributed to
the sharp increase in life sentences, but
have since come under greater scrutiny.</p>
<p>As states rethink their regimes on
punishment so that public safety is paired
with fairness, it is clearly important to
adopt reforms for those individuals
convicted of low-level and nonviolent
crimes. But it would also be wise from a
moral and fiscal standpoint, as well as the
standpoint of public safety, to give a
second look to those serving life sentences
as well.</p>
<h5>Prison Population in 1970 to Life
Sentenced-Population in 2016, All States</h5>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><span>State</span></th>
<th><span>Prison Population 1970</span></th>
<th><span>Life-Sentenced Population 2016</span></th>
<th><span>Ratio</span></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alabama</td>
<td>3,790</td>
<td>6,104</td>
<td>1.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Alaska</td>
<td>191</td>
<td>400</td>
<td>2.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Arizona</td>
<td>1,461</td>
<td>2,309</td>
<td>1.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Arkansas</td>
<td>1,658</td>
<td>2,421</td>
<td>1.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>California</td>
<td>25,033</td>
<td>40,691</td>
<td>1.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Colorado</td>
<td>2,066</td>
<td>3,583</td>
<td>1.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Connecticut</td>
<td>1,568</td>
<td>740</td>
<td>0.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Delaware</td>
<td>596</td>
<td>791</td>
<td>1.3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Federal</td>
<td>20,038</td>
<td>6,720</td>
<td>0.3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Florida</td>
<td>9,187</td>
<td>14,166</td>
<td>1.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Georgia</td>
<td>5,113</td>
<td>9,377</td>
<td>1.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Hawaii</td>
<td>228</td>
<td>360</td>
<td>1.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Idaho</td>
<td>411</td>
<td>649</td>
<td>1.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Illinois</td>
<td>6,381</td>
<td>5,092</td>
<td>0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Indiana</td>
<td>4,137</td>
<td>3,767</td>
<td>0.9</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Iowa</td>
<td>1,747</td>
<td>1,169</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Kansas</td>
<td>1,902</td>
<td>1,377</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Kentucky</td>
<td>2,849</td>
<td>1,509</td>
<td>0.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Louisiana</td>
<td>4,196</td>
<td>11,283</td>
<td>2.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maine</td>
<td>516</td>
<td>136</td>
<td>0.3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maryland</td>
<td>5,186</td>
<td>4,158</td>
<td>0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Massachusetts</td>
<td>2,053</td>
<td>2,038</td>
<td>1.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Michigan</td>
<td>9,079</td>
<td>5,711</td>
<td>0.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Minnesota</td>
<td>1,585</td>
<td>597</td>
<td>0.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Mississippi</td>
<td>1,730</td>
<td>2,413</td>
<td>1.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Missouri</td>
<td>3,413</td>
<td>3,436</td>
<td>1.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Montana</td>
<td>260</td>
<td>370</td>
<td>1.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Nebraska</td>
<td>1,001</td>
<td>769</td>
<td>0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Nevada</td>
<td>690</td>
<td>3,237</td>
<td>4.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>New Hampshire</td>
<td>244</td>
<td>266</td>
<td>1.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>New Jersey</td>
<td>5,704</td>
<td>2,080</td>
<td>0.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>New Mexico</td>
<td>742</td>
<td>1,051</td>
<td>1.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>New York</td>
<td>12,059</td>
<td>9,889</td>
<td>0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>North Carolina</td>
<td>5,969</td>
<td>4,132</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>North Dakota</td>
<td>147</td>
<td>80</td>
<td>0.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ohio</td>
<td>9,185</td>
<td>6,685</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oklahoma</td>
<td>3,640</td>
<td>3,590</td>
<td>1.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oregon</td>
<td>1,800</td>
<td>737</td>
<td>0.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Pennsylvania</td>
<td>6,289</td>
<td>7,800</td>
<td>1.2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Rhode Island</td>
<td>378</td>
<td>274</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>South Carolina</td>
<td>2,726</td>
<td>2,540</td>
<td>0.9</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>South Dakota</td>
<td>391</td>
<td>371</td>
<td>0.9</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Tennessee</td>
<td>3,268</td>
<td>3,563</td>
<td>1.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Texas</td>
<td>14,331</td>
<td>17,755</td>
<td>1.2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Utah</td>
<td>491</td>
<td>2,004</td>
<td>4.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Vermont</td>
<td>162</td>
<td>121</td>
<td>0.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Virginia</td>
<td>4,648</td>
<td>2,577</td>
<td>0.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Washington</td>
<td>2,864</td>
<td>2,953</td>
<td>1.0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>West Virginia</td>
<td>938</td>
<td>748</td>
<td>0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Wisconsin</td>
<td>2,973</td>
<td>1,413</td>
<td>0.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Wyoming</td>
<td>231</td>
<td>311</td>
<td>1.3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span>Total</span></td>
<td><span>197,245</span></td>
<td><span>206,268</span></td>
<td><br>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
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