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Takeisha Brown’s son, Tyquine Lee, who has a history of severe mental health issues was held in solitary confinement for over 600 days in a Virginia prison. She recently wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post that stressed the importance of giving people serving extreme sentences a meaningful chance at release through Second LookMORE »

Susan Brown, who is serving a life sentence in Michigan, recently penned an opinion piece for the Lansing State Journal on the importance of Second Look legislation for people serving extreme sentences in the state.

In the piece she writes:

“I am a mother. I am a survivor of domestic violence. I am a renownedMORE »

There’s no reason for Virginia to continue these extreme sentences. Plenty of research shows that people who are released from prison after a long period of time, even those convicted for violent crimes, are incredibly unlikely to reoffend. That’s because people tend to age out of crime.

Sentenced at 17 to life without parole, Henry Montgomery, now 75, was released after appearing before the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole on Wednesday, November 17.

Bill Underwood, Senior Fellow at The Sentencing Project’s Campaign to End Life Imprisonment, penned an opinion piece for the New York Daily News highlighting the importance of the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act and the First Step Implementation Act to allow a path for release for vulnerable incarcerated people, and those serving extreme sentences.

In the piece,MORE »

The number of women in prison serving life without the possibility of parole has risen 43% since 2008, adding to an already aging prison population nationwide.

In a recent article on CNN, the latest research from The Alice Project—a collaboration from The Sentencing Project, The National Black Women’sMORE »

It’s June 17, 2021. It’s the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s declaration of the War on Drugs — and it’s the day I get to testify before members of the House Judiciary Committee about the legacy and harms of the punitive criminal justice policies that came out of this war.

Reforms to reduce extreme sentences have largely stalled based on unfounded fears that people imprisoned for violent crimes will reoffend. Those fears have been debunked by a mountain of research. State, national and international studies have consistently found that people released from prison after serving many years have extremely low rates of recidivism, including those convicted of violent offenses.

At 15 years old, Michael Mendoza sat in the backseat of a car while the front-seat passenger shot and killed someone in a gang-related murder. After nearly twenty years in prison he got a second chance at life. Today he is the National Policy Director at the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) in California, where he isMORE »

Second Look reforms can reduce our prison population, address racial disparities and create a more humane and effective criminal justice system. Second Look legislation is not new—in fact, it is part of a national trend. Over the past several years, lawmakers in 25 states have introduced Second Look legislation.

This webinar discussed the latest research and advocacy around second look reforms. Panelists highlighted California’s prosecutor-initiated sentencing reviews, DC’s Second Look Amendment Act—impacting up to 29% of its imprisoned population, and the campaign for an Elder Parole bill in New York State.

As life without parole sentences continue to increase, the country’s patchwork system of public defense hasn’t kept up. 

Sundiata Acoli Has Been In Prison Over 48 Years. He Recently Recovered From COVID. It’s Time For New Jersey To Let Him Go.

More than 600,000 Americans are released from prison each year. Lee Horton is one of them.  He was sentenced to life without parole and spent a quarter of a century behind bars before his sentence was commuted, securing his release earlier this year.

Watch our webinar on the latest research and advocacy around life imprisonment, including information on race, women and the elderly life-sentenced population.

Virginia is on the verge of eliminating the death penalty. While this is cause for much celebration, the movement to abolish capital punishment has too often pushed for another form of the death penalty as a humane alternative: life without the possibility of parole.

As part of an effort to end mass incarceration in the American justice system and remedy decades of racial inequity, The Sentencing Project is calling for limiting prison sentences to 20 years.

More than two thirds of the roughly 203,000 people serving life sentences in the United States are people of color, according to The Sentencing Project’s recent report on life imprisonment.

The number of people serving life without parole — the most extreme type of life sentence — is higher than ever before, a 66% increase since The Sentencing Project’s first census in 2003. One in 5 Black men in prison is serving a life sentence and Latinx individuals comprise 16% of those serving
life sentences.