Hard Time: Prisons Are Packed With More Lifers Than Ever

((and remember, as people age their health can become compromosed...so get ready to pay up, folks---alexis))

A new study suggests that the recent nominal decline in America’s prison population may be a case of political bait-and-switch.  The government has trumpeted a reduction in the number of federal and state inmates over the past three years, to 1.57 million in 2012, down fractionally from a peak of 1.62 million in 2009.

But a report released Wednesday reveals a countervailing trend: The number of prisoners serving life sentences reached a record of nearly 160,000 last year. Of those, 49,000 were serving life without the possibility of parole, up 22.2 percent since 2008.

One in nine American prisoners is locked up for life, according to the study, “Life Goes On: The Historic Rise in Life Sentences in America,” by Ashley Nellis, senior research analyst with the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit criminal justice advocacy group.

“Unfortunately, lifers are typically excluded from most sentencing reform conversations because there’s this sense that it’s not going to sell, politically or with the public,” Nellis told WhoWhatWhy.

“Legislators are saying, ‘We have to throw somebody under the bus,’” added Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group. “And it’s the lifers who get thrown under the bus.”

Nellis found that the trend toward more life sentences holds true across the ideological breadth of America–from blue states like California, Washington, Pennsylvania and New York, to red states like Texas, Georgia and Louisiana, to purple states like Florida, Ohio and Nevada.

California Is Lifer Leader

With 40,362 lifers, California had one-quarter of the country’s life-sentenced population. Other lifer-leading states were Florida (12,549), New York (10,245), Texas (9,031), Georgia (7,938), Ohio (6,075), Michigan (5,137), Pennsylvania (5,104) and Louisiana (4,657).

http://whowhatwhy.com/hard-time-prisons-are-packed

“I was surprised by the consistency of the increase across the states,” Nellis said. “There really isn’t any state out there that isn’t growing its lifer population. There seems to be no ideological barrier.”

California also had the highest proportion of lifers, at a remarkable 30.1 percent of its 134,000 inmates. Other leaders by percentage were Utah, 29.2 percent; Nevada, 21.5; Massachusetts, 19.4; New York, 18.8; Alabama, 16.6, and Washington, 15.4.