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Life Without Parole Research Paper

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Research Paper: Life In Prison Without Parole Austin Agyemang Mr. Rank 3/8/2018 American Lit 9 Life in prison without parole is a cruel and harsh punishment but it helps give those in prison time to reflect on their lives, their action, and keep in touch with their families. LWOP still offers to an individual an opportunity to appreciate parts about his/her life, giving them the ability to keep in contact with their families or friends. Someone,who has been put …show more content…

are sentenced to life in prison – whether for murder or for other serious felonies – and 33,000 of those prisoners are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole. This is ten times the number on death row. One of every 11 offenders in a state or federal prison is now serving a life sentence. This is 9.4% of the prison population – 127, 677 persons. One fourth of these (26.3%) are serving a sentence of life without parole.Life sentences in America today stand at an unprecedented level: as of 2012, 159,520 people in prison were serving a life sentence and 49,081 (30.8%) of them have no possibility for parole. Nationally, one in every nine people in prison today are serving a life sentence (Hugo 132). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated, “Life without parole provides swift, severe, and certain punishment. It provides justice to survivors of murdered victims and allows more resources to be invested into solving other murders and preventing violence. Sentencing people to die in prison is the sensible alternative for public safety and murdered victims’ families” (ACLU Hill vs …show more content…

The case of Graham vs Florida cleared out any confusion about the LWOP. When Terrace Graham was 16 years old, he was convicted of armed burglary and attempted armed robbery. He served a 12 month sentence and was released. Six months later, Graham was tried and convicted by a Florida State Court of armed home robbery and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. On appeal, he argued that the imposition of a life sentence without parole on a juvenile violated the Eighth Amendment and moreover constituted cruel and unusual punishment, and that violated the Eighth Amendment. The District Court of Appeal of Florida disagreed. It held that Graham’s sentence neither was a facial violation of the Eighth Amendment nor constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court ruled in June 2012 that juveniles convicted of murder cannot be subject to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of

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