ALABAMA IS PROSECUTING A MOM FOR TAKING PRESCRIBED MEDICATION WHILE PREGNANT

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Moira Donegan

At least 18 states require that doctors who know about substance use during pregnancy turn their patients in. A woman could be arrested just for being honest with her doctor

‘Her prosecution suggests that Alabama authorities are looking for creative ways to limit the rights of pregnant women, regardless of the clearly expressed intent of their own legislature.’
‘Her prosecution suggests that Alabama authorities are looking for creative ways to limit the rights of pregnant women, regardless of the clearly expressed intent of their own legislature.’ Photograph: Ink Drop/Alamy Stock Photo

A36-year-old Alabama woman is facing felony charges for filling a doctor’s prescription. Kim Blalock, a mother of six, suffers from severe back pain caused by degeneration of her spinal discs. “There are days that I can’t get up,” Blalock has said. Her condition worsened over the years following surgeries and car accidents. An orthopedist prescribed hydrocodone, an opiate pain killer, and she started using it occasionally when the pain became too much to handle. She stopped taking her prescription during her most recent pregnancy, but as her bump grew, the weight added pressure on her back, and the pain worsened. Midway through her third trimester, she couldn’t take it any more, and refilled her prescription. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy soon after, this past September. Out of caution, she told her doctor about medications she had taken during pregnancy – including the hydrocodone. That’s where the trouble started. After her son tested positive for hydrocodone, an investigation was launched. The state child services agency found no wrongdoing, but the local police and district attorney pressed on. Two months after she gave birth, seven armed officers raided her house, terrifying her children.

Blalock is charged with prescription fraud; prosecutors allege that she committed a crime when she failed to inform her prescribing doctor that she was pregnant before refilling her hydrocodone. It’s a novel charge for such a case, but Alabama has a long history of prosecuting pregnant women under a strict reading of a statute against “chemical endangerment of a child”, which classifies substance use during pregnancy as a form of child abuse. Since 2006, when meth labs were appearing across rural communities, Alabama has made it a felony to expose a child to a chemically toxic environment. The law was meant to enforce heavier penalties on people who make drugs around children, exposing them to the vapors that are emitted in the creation of crack and meth. But prosecutors quickly began deploying the law against pregnant women, interpreting a “chemically toxic environment” to mean the pregnant body itself.

And so, in Alabama, women’s bodies became one of the most hotly contested fronts in the “war on drugs”. But drug laws are being used to criminalize pregnant people throughout the US. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have such laws, known as “chemical endangerment of a child” statutes, on the books. Whatever their intent, such laws in practice often enable prosecutors to charge drug use by pregnant women as a felony. Enforcement is not merely a matter of increasing charges and punishments against defendants who happen to be pregnant: at least 18 states legally require that doctors who know about substance use during pregnancy – like Blalock’s obstetrician – turn their patients in. A woman carrying a healthy pregnancy could be turned into the police just for being honest with her own doctor.

Nationwide, the results of such laws have been chilling: California prosecutors charged a woman with murder – via chemical endangerment – after she gave birth to a stillborn infant, claiming that her use of methamphetamine while pregnant was tantamount to homicide. A judge dismissed the charges in May, but did not rule that California’s homicide statutes can’t be used against pregnant women who consume drugs.

But illegal drugs are not the only ones women are being arrested for taking. A shocking number of cases have been brought, both in Alabama and around the country, against women who merely took their medication as prescribed while they happened to be pregnant. After a 2016 investigation found that more than 500 Alabama women had been prosecuted under the state’s chemical endangerment law for filling their prescriptions while pregnant, the state legislature clarified that the law was meant to apply only to recreational drugs, not prescription drugs. Yet Blalock, who merely filled her own prescription, is still being charged for taking her meds. Her prosecution suggests that Alabama authorities are looking for creative ways to limit the rights of pregnant women, regardless of the clearly expressed intent of their own legislature.

For many women, this will be the takeaway: don’t trust the doctor

The case raises troubling questions. Since Blalock is being charged with a felony for not disclosing her pregnancy, does that mean that pregnant people in Alabama have an obligation to share such sensitive information – even when they haven’t been asked? Since prosecutors claim that it was illegal for Blalock to take her meds while pregnant, but was not illegal for her to take them when she wasn’t pregnant, does that suggest that pregnancy negates a patient’s right to medical treatment? Are some conditions worth treating in patients who aren’t pregnant, but somehow not worth treating in patients who are?

And what about the mandatory reporting elements that are included in so many of these statutes – how will this hollowing-out of doctor-patient confidentiality impact health outcomes? It’s hard not to dwell on the realization that if Blalock hadn’t been frank with her doctor, she would have been spared this entire ordeal.

For many women, this will be the takeaway: don’t trust the doctor. When laws incentivize women to be dishonest with their medical providers, or forgo medical care entirely while pregnant, it’s not clear how those laws can be said to ensure the safety of a fetus. If anything, they seem to be discouraging the practices that lead to good pregnancy outcomes.

In the meantime, Blalock is still suffering. “It really has taken its toll,” she said of her felony charge. “I didn’t get to bond with my baby. I’ve had severe postpartum depression with this baby.” If there’s any so-called “child endangerment” in this case, it’s not coming from her.

Opinion | Shameless: Alabama asks to use COVID funds to build more prisons

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“The Department of Corrections wants federal dollars to build more prisons. The Treasury Department should laugh.”

By JOSH MOON

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

There is no shame left in Alabama. Admittedly, shame has been in short supply here for decades. But whatever miniscule amount remained was shoved out on July 15 — the day Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department asking if the state could use COVID-19 relief funds to build new prisons. 

That’s right. In the state with the worst vaccination rate in the country, where rural hospitals are closing like Blockbuster stores and tens of thousands of Alabamians lack basic sewer services, we’re trying to use COVID recovery funds to incarcerate people. 

Not create programs that move people out of prisons. Not provide more resources to underserved communities to squeeze shut the school-to-prison pipeline. 

Nope. Build bigger prisons. 

hat was our ADOC commissioner’s idea. And, as hard as it is to believe, that’s not even the worst part. 

Dunn’s reasoning was essentially: We lock up a lot of Black and brown people, and because we’ve so thoroughly neglected our prisons over the past 50 years and routinely over-crowd them, those “disproportionately impacted” people (minority individuals) are being hurt by the atrocious living conditions that make viral spread much easier. 

He actually wrote this down and mailed it to the Treasury Department. 

(I’m no attorney, but this letter would seem to make it very easy for Alabama prisoners to sue the state and prison system for violating their constitutional rights. I mean, the commissioner has just stated publicly that the living conditions that led to dozens of COVID deaths and even more hospitalizations and long-term illnesses were known to everyone.)

The insanity of the ADOC commissioner stating that “we’re locking up a lot of minority people and not treating them well, so please let us use this virus money to solve the problems that we’ve been unwilling to solve on our own” is off the charts. 

But it’s also a window into the disturbing minds of Alabama’s leaders. 

They know full well that there is a multitude of problems within our corrections system. So many, in fact, that we really shouldn’t be allowed to call it a corrections system, since nothing — including the department’s own ineptitude — is ever corrected. 

Instead, what we have is really, really crappy housing for thousands of people that we fail every single day. 

Most of our incarcerated people never had a shot at anything other than a jail cell. They arrived in broken homes — often the result of the failed “war on drugs” — and went to broken schools. They lived their lives hungry and angry. And they landed in “the system” at an early age. From there, life as a criminal began — for any one of a thousand well-known reasons — and thanks to our utter inability to rehabilitate anyone, there was never an off-ramp on this road. 

None of that absolves any of the prisoners of personal responsibility, of course. But if we’re going to ask them to take responsibility for their failures and their poor actions, then we should damn well be willing to do the same. 

But we don’t. 

We have poured billions of dollars into our prisons, and we’ve produced possibly the country’s worst. Prisoners die at alarming rates. Drugs are everywhere inside of the prison walls, despite the fact there hasn’t been a visitor in one for more than a year. Education programs have been left to rot. And COVID ran wild. 

It’s so bad that the Trump DOJ — that’s right, the Trump DOJ — sued Alabama over its prison mismanagement. That case is still ongoing, and we’re going to lose. 

And now, these incompetents want federal dollars to build more prisons. 

The Treasury Department should laugh. 

Or better yet, it should send Alabama a list of things it could do with its COVID recovery funds to solve its prison issues. Things like establishing more equitable funding for all public schools. And guaranteeing that all Alabama school children have access to broadband. And guaranteeing that all public school meals are free — and that there are at least two meals a day. And ensuring that there are quality afterschool programs and viable community centers. And ensuring that working families can get childcare costs 100 percent covered. And providing competent legal representation for all accused people. And offering — and actually staffing — educational and vocational programs for convicted people. And doing more work to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences. And re-establishing Alabama’s top notch mental health network that saved millions of lives. 

We could do all of those things with a fraction of the money it currently costs to operate Alabama’s prisons. 

But those things are hard. They dip into areas of race and class. And they mostly come with few political points for the person pushing them. 

The result of not doing these things, however, we know. We see those results in the hellholes we call our state prisons — prisons that are so bad the ADOC commissioner is out here begging the feds for a little help. 

And we’re begging for that help even as we fight the feds in court over the terrible state of our prisons. 

See what I meant about the absence of shame in Alabama? 

Piece originally published on Alabama Political Reporter.

Parole Hearings, Incentive Good Time, Prison Overcrowding & Criminal Justice Reform – An Open Letter to Gov. Kay Ivey

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Dear Governor Ivey

I have been incarcerated for 11 years as of November 2020. In my time with Alabama’s Department of Corrections i have seen numerous people with what are considered “violent crimes” be denied parole or not be considered until they have done 85% of their time or 15 years, whichever is less. Most women who are by law considered violent, are not. If you look at the statistics for women who are charged with violent crimes and have been released, the recidivism rate is extremely low.

The Parole Board has some serious issues that need to be addressed. A parole hearing should not be about re-trying our case. The judge has already done that. It should be about our institutional record; i.e. what steps we have taken to keep from re-offending, the classes we have taken to help in our recovery and classes that ADOC recommended, if we have any behaviour disciplinaries and our work performance while incarcerated. These things will tell if we are ready to re-enter society as a law abiding citizen. Our charge/conviction will never change, but we can change if we have a desire to and our institutional record will reflect this.

Prison overcrowding could be alleviated by re-instituting Incentive Good Time (IGT) to people with sentences less than life without parole or the death penalty and placing a cap on life sentences. The IGT was removed by “Michie’s Alabama Code Title 14, Chapter 9, Article 3, Deductions from sentences of Correctional Incentive Time”. Capping life sentences and making good time available across the board would provide a huge incentive for not only good behaviour, but it would reduce the amount of drugs being done in the prison system. IGT can be pulled if an inmate gets into trouble by receiving a disciplinary (such as bad behaviour or dirty urinalysis) so this would be a good incentive to remain trouble and drug free. As it stands now, people with long sentences have no incentive to improve their behaviour except their own moral conviction. This does not work for some people who have served long periods of time and numerous denials of parole, they have lost all hope and need a more tangible reason, such as getting IGT or some hope of making parole in the foreseeable future.

We need a prison system that allows people to work toward achievable goals that are based on our behaviour while incarcerated and not on our crime. We can not change what we did yesterday, but we can change who we are today. Locking people up and throwing away the key will only change people for the worse. That is why our prisons are in the shape they are in today. We must all learn from our past mistakes and that includes the way Alabama views its prison population. Not only do the laws need to be revised, sentencing guidelines re-worked and due process of law examined (which includes plea agreements that are signed by people that do not know their rights or the law, but are convinced by prosecutors that its in their best interest to sign them).

Thank yolu for taking the time to read this and i hope you will take into consideration the above suggestions given by someone who has lived this life for 11 years and witnessed the hopelessness firsthand.

Respectfully.

A female inmate at Birmingham Community Based Facility.

2020 Petition for the Advancement of Class A & B Women Offenders

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In 2016 Deputy Commissioner of Women’s Services, Wendy Williams went to all three of Alabama’s Department of Corrections facilities and held conferences in front of women that she’d handpicked. Everyone of us inmates were convicted of either Class A or Class B felonies that they classify as “violent”.

She told us that according to a new classification manual called the Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA) that was being implemented later that year, we were going to be able to work again for the first time since Governor Siegelman‘s order to remove all “violent” offenders from the work release programs back in the late 1990’s. It is now 2020 and four years since Commissioner Williams announcement to us, yet none of us have been allowed to work a single day.

In truth the Class A & B offenders have long held some of ADOC’s most trusted and responsible jobs, being van drivers, transporting workers to and from their work places, Governor’s Mansion workers, Department of Motor Vehicles workers, Department of Transportation workers, road crews that clear litter and garbage from our highways, courthouse workers, State Trooper office workers, ADOC fleet maintenance workers etc.

When considering allowing first time Class A & B offenders the ability to work, we feel that the positive aspects far outweigh any negative or political aspects which include but are not limited to:

  • Increasing revenue back into the work release coffers
  • Paying off outstanding fines and restitution
  • Contributing to the offenders upkeep instead of being a costly liability to the state
  • Helping each woman prepare and transition back into society
  • Proving to the public and to the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles that the women are worthy and capable of being productive, law abiding citizens of society.

In 2018 a special docket loaded Class A & B offenders who were specially picked by the Central Review Board, due to the qualifications they had met for their accomplishments throughout their incarceration, and were due to be considered for early paroles in late September, these women already having served the bulk of their sentences.

Due to the grievous actions of a “non violent” parolee, the entire docket was pulled and a moratorium from Governor Ivey stopped all early paroles on Class A & B offenders who had not served 1/3 of their sentences, even though some of these early parole dates, had been issued years in advance by the previous parole board. Us women that were eligible for parole having excellent institutional records and home plans have had that taken away from us due to actions that were far beyond our control.

Jimmy Lee Spencer was considered a non violent offender in prison even though he had been in and out of prison for most of his life, he had numerous violent disciplinary actions brought against him and he was considered confrontational and argumentative at the best of times, these traits should have been reviewed and considered as part of his parole consideration hearing, obviously they wasn’t for whatever reason.

Given the fact that most first time Class A & B offenders receive such lengthy sentences, parole is usually our only hope for regaining our liberty. Why should we be held accountable for something that we have no control over? We are being used by politicians and other public officials as the scapegoat for jimmy Lee Spencer.

We are trying to right our wrongs, we are not our past mistakes, but we are trying to create a future that we can all be proud of. All we are asking for is the opportunity.

Sincerely, First time Class A & B women offenders of ADOC

Alabama Department of Corrections ridiculous and arbitrary mail practices that discriminates against women with the lowest custody level at Birmingham Community Based Work Release Facility

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There is nothing in the Alabama Department of Corrections administrative regulations that we could find that details what they are doing to the women’s mail at this facility. As mail arrives, it is photocopied, be it letters, birthday cards or photographs, they then destroy the originals and give the women the black and white photocopy.

They claim this arbitrary practice is in order to stem the supply of drugs into the facility, however, despite not having visitation for over 3 months now due to the pandemic, the drugs are still readily available which proves what we all suspected anyway, in that the drugs are not brought in by an inmates family and friends at visitation, but rather its being smuggled in by ADOC’s own staff or via legal mail.

The key dealers in this facility know how to easily circumvent ADOC’s ineffective drug screening and detection protocols, they would rather punish every woman by destroying their mail, even mail that is sent from 3rd party online services, than deal with the culprits effectively.

Morale and self esteem is at an all time low, visitation has been put on hold with no time frame of when it will resume. This work release facility should be preparing women to go back into the free world after years of suffering within these hell hole facilities where they have been deliberately denied even the most basic of human rights, but ADOC is doing the opposite, they are locking down, they are taking away, they are disregarding and punishing those that have already been punished with the loss of their liberty in some cases for decades already, now they can’t even receive a picture drawn by a child to its mother.

We are sick and tired of how they treat our loved ones.

 

Resuming parole hearings is not enough

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By Beth Shelburne April 24th 2020

On December 18, 2019, I watched Alabama’s parole board deny relief to every case it considered that day. It was the last day of parole hearings for the year, and I decided to observe the process in action after monitoring the data for months as paroles plummeted like an elevator with snapped cables. Under new leaders appointed by Governor Kay Ivey, the number of scheduled parole hearings dropped by more than half compared to the year before and parole grants fell to a new low of 15 percent.

I watched the three board members deny release to people convicted of both violent and nonviolent offenses, to people whose families practically begged for parole and promised to provide a stable home, and to people who were within six months of reaching the end of their sentences. I wondered why those cases were even scheduled for hearings when there are thousands of people with long-term sentences that could be considered. Between cancellations and fewer hearings under this regime, the backlog of parole-eligible people inside Alabama prisons has ballooned to over 4000.

Only two victims out of the 18 cases scheduled that day spoke out against paroling the person who committed a crime against them, but an officer with the attorney general’s office voiced opposition in 15 of the cases. The officer began testimony against each person with the same boilerplate introduction- “We are here to protest the parole of this inmate-” never saying the person’s actual name. She pointed out their prison disciplinary infractions with no context, and went over facts from their criminal cases like she was retrying the crime in court.

In one case, she argued against paroling a man who had served over 11 years for third-degree robbery. She casually mentioned that he agreed to a plea deal after first being charged with a more serious crime, suggesting that he was more dangerous than his record indicated. A parole hearing is not the place to relitigate criminal cases, or bring up accusations against someone that didn’t pan out in court. But apparently everything in these hearings is fair game, even holding people to a standard beyond their actual convictions.

The officer with the attorney general’s office sat at a table with members of a victim’s advocacy group, who accompanied the crime victims during testimony. On the table sat cups, a pitcher of ice water and a box of tissues. Conversely, the friends and loved ones who supported parole sat at an empty table across the room. There was no one to gently usher them through the intimidating process of speaking out in support of someone who has committed a crime. Many who advocated for parole stumbled through their statements, then silently filed out of the room after hearing the decision, shoulders hunched, faces cast down. It was an exercise in shaming, much like incarceration itself.

Whether we like it or not, parole is an integral part of Alabama’s criminal sentencing structure. We have indeterminate sentences, which means judges almost always impose a range of time someone must spend in prison, with parole being the most tangible way to cut that time and return to one’s family and community. Ideally, parole gives incarcerated people something to strive for, an incentive to stay out of trouble and participate in rehabilitative programs. It should be the vehicle to pull people out of incarceration, but our current parole apparatus finds new ways to punish, to demoralize, to take away the one thing left to cling to in the dark: hope.

It has always been difficult to make parole in Alabama, but never more so than today. We are one of only two states that does not allow the person being considered for parole to participate in their own hearing. Our system has always been fraught with politics, cloaked in opacity. In 2019, Alabama received an F in a study by the Prison Policy Institute that graded fairness in state parole systems. That failing grade was before Governor Ivey appointed Charlie “lock-em-up” Graddick as executive director for the agency, with a salary of $172 thousand a year, $68 thousand more than his predecessor.

For months after Graddick began, the agency doubled as a tough-on-crime propaganda machine, issuing a daily list of parole candidates it referred to as “murderers, rapists and robbers,” along with sensational details of their crimes lifted from media reports. Press releases on parole results included celebratory headlines- “Board denies parole for 14 violent felons.” The inflammatory rhetoric calmed down only after lawmakers questioned why the very agency that decides who gets out of prison seemed intent on making everyone in prison look as terrible as possible.

This board has denied parole in 85 percent of cases, only granting 133 paroles out of 866 cases considered so far this fiscal year. In the last fiscal year, 1,337 paroles were granted out of 4,270 cases considered, and those were the lowest numbers in 15 years worth of data. This board seems particularly hellbent on denying parole for anyone serving time for a violent offense, even when they’ve served decades in prison and demonstrated rehabilitation. Multiple studies show people typically age out of criminal behavior and there’s little public safety benefit in long-term sentences. Additionally, a 2018 study on recidivism by the U.S. Department of Justice found released property offenders are much more likely to be arrested than released violent offenders.

Mr. Graddick recently announced parole hearings will resume in May after canceling hundreds of hearings due to concerns about COVID-19. But it’s not enough to just resume hearings. To mitigate the swelling backlog, the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles must aggressively increase the number of scheduled hearings. Since November, current leadership has slated an average of 173 parole hearings a month, less than half the average number of monthly hearings in fiscal year 2019. If an estimated 300 people become eligible for parole each month, the board would need to hear approximately 460 cases per month for the next 2 years just to catch up. Right now 141 hearings have been scheduled for the entire month of May.  

The urgency to fix this crisis is truly a matter of life and death and all state leaders should insist that no more time be wasted. The state needs to establish an infrastructure, so all sides are supported in the parole process, not just crime victims and law enforcement. Alabama needs to provide a prison system that allows people to work toward achievable parole goals, instead of allowing unmitigated violence, corruption and apathy. And lastly, leaders must restore a meaningful chance at parole by demanding that the parole board evaluate people according to who they are now, not who they were when they committed their crimes. Every person waiting for a parole hearing, along with each person denied relief is yet another Alabamian at risk of having a prison sentence turn into a death sentence in the most overcrowded, violent prison system in the nation, which now faces the additional threat of COVID-19.

Call Your Governor to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 in Jails and Prisons

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GettyImages-1032118816-scaled
Detainees in Module I at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange, California, on Tuesday, March 14, 2017 (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

We need governors to act immediately so that we can protect the lives of people who are currently incarcerated in prisons, jails and detention facilities across the country.  The Innocence Project has signed on to a letter issued by a coalition of organizations calling on governors to act immediately to help protect people in prisons and jails and the larger community. We ask you to call your governor by filling out the form above and you’ll be connected.

Below are a few of the most vulnerable people who need relief:

  • Prioritize the immediate release of the elderly and medically vulnerable, including individuals who are pregnant or who have asthma, chronic illness, lung disease, or heart disease.
  • Release anyone who is within 18 months of his/her release date.
  • Urge a hold to all new state prison sentences for anyone who is currently not detained.
  • Release all people held on probation and parole technical violation detainers or sentences. Ensure no new jail or prison sentences based on technical violations.
  • Ensure that all people released from prison have a transition plan that includes seamless access to medical care and health-related services.
  • Ask parole boards to release all individuals who are currently on parole and develop an emergency process that can expedite parole hearings.
  • Create a framework that facilitates the expedient release of as many incarcerated individuals as possible.

ACLU OF ALABAMA CALLS ON LEADERS TO MAKE PRISONS TOP PRIORITY IN COVID-19 RESPONSE

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Montgomery, Ala. — Close to 22,000 Alabamians incarcerated by the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) face a much higher risk of contracting coronavirus than the general public, but there’s been no mention of plans to ensure their safety and well-being. Last week Governor Kay Ivey announced the formation of a Coronavirus Task Force, and the ACLU of Alabama urges the group to prioritize plans for Alabama prisons, which were already experiencing a sustained overcrowding and understaffing crisis before the pandemic.

Statement from Randall Marshall, Executive Director, ACLU of Alabama:

“Incarcerated people cannot follow the CDC recommendation of social distancing, and because Alabama prisons are already operating at 170 percent of their designed capacity, these men and women are at an increased risk of exposure and contamination in the prison population. Furthermore, with over 20 percent of people in ADOC custody over the age of 50, there are thousands who are at higher risk of serious health complications or death if they are infected.

It is imperative that the Governor and ADOC release their plans to prevent the spread of COVID-19 inside the prisons, to quarantine and care for any prisoner who shows symptoms, and to ensure all supplies and food remain stocked during this crisis. They must also address how they plan to provide continued staffing in the event of staff shortages due to illness or caring for an ill family member. ADOC staffing is currently at 40 percent.

These and other questions must be answered now. Alabama leaders have historically disregarded the health and safety of the men and women incarcerated in state prisons. The ACLU of Alabama urges state leaders to not follow that old pattern and make prisons a top priority in Alabama’s COVID-19 response.”

Please sign the petition here calling for President Trump and all state governors to heed the recommendations of public health professionals: Release communities who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 – particularly the elderly and sick – and reduce overcrowding in our criminal legal system.

 

People Serving Life Exceeds Entire Prison Population of 1970

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Campaign to end life imprisonment

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 com- ponent of the development of mass incarceration.

In this report, we present a closer look at the rise in life sentences amidst the overall incarceration expansion.

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 1970¹ and in an additional nine states, the life imprisonment total is within 100 people of the 1970 prison population.

Figure 1. Comparison of Life Sentenced-Population in 2016 to Prison Population in 1970

Ex: Texas’ life-sentenced population is 1.2X the size of its overall prison population in 1970
Ex: Texas’ life-sentenced population is 1.2X the size of its overall prison population in 1970

Figure 2. Percent Difference Between Life-Sentenced Population in 2016 and Total Prison Population in 1970

States above the dotted line have life-sentenced populations that are greater than their total prison population in 1970

States above the dotted line have life-sentenced populations that are greater than their total prison population in 1970
States above the dotted line have life-sentenced populations that are greater than their total prison population in 1970

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.

In 24 states, there are now more people serving life sentences than were in the entire prison population in 1970

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. 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

In 24 states, there are now more people serving life sentences than were in the entire prison population in 1970 population in 1970. The next two most dramatic shifts are in Louisiana and Alaska² where their life-sentenced populations are more than double their overall prison populations in 1970.

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.

Figure 3. Population Change in Prison Population and Life-Sentenced Population, 2003-2016

Population Change in Prison Population and Life-Sentenced Population, 2003-2016
Population Change in Prison Population and Life-Sentenced Population, 2003-2016

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.

While prison totals have declined by 0.5% between 2003 and 2016, there has been a 30% increase in life sentences

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.

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.

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.

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.

Figure 4. Life without Parole Growing More Quickly Than Life with Parole, 2003-2016

Life without Parole Growing More Quickly Than Life with Parole, 2003-2016
Life without Parole Growing More Quickly Than Life with Parole, 2003-2016

¹ Prison population data was not available for Alaska, Arkansas, and Rhode Island in 1970, so for these states we use prison population data for 1971.

² Life with or without parole is not statutorily defined in Alaska’s criminal code, but the state allows sentences we identify as “virtual life” terms of 50 years or more.

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