On October 11, 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court struck down the state’s use of the death penalty due to overwhelming evidence of racial bias. Key players, including the state’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Governor Jay Inslee, praised this move as a distinction of humaneness. Ferguson went so far as to assure us, “WeMORE »
America puts more people in jail and prison than any other country in the world. Although the country has managed to slightly reduce its prison population in recent years, mass incarceration remains a fact of the US criminal justice system.
It’s time for a radical idea that could really begin to reverse mass incarceration:MORE »
When Trina Garnett was 14 years old when she killed two people in Chester, Pennsylvania. Garnett had been abused and neglected for most of her life, suffered a serious intellectual disability and was homeless at the time of her offense. Despite these challenges, the girl wasMORE »
The Sentencing Project’s executive director Marc Mauer and senior research analyst Ashley Nellis, co-authors of The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences (The New Press, 2018), argue against any sentence longer than 20 years on WNYC’s the Brian Lehrer Show.
Cyntoia Brown, a Tennessee woman serving a life sentence, has been granted clemency and will be coming home this summer after 15 years in prison. Cyntoia was a victim of child sex trafficking and earned national attention after her case was acknowledged by Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, and other Hollywood celebrities.
Governor Haslam’s commutation finallyMORE »
The Sentencing Project’s Marc Mauer was recently featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to discuss his new book with Ashley Nellis, The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences. Marc and Trevor discussed the relationship between mass incarceration and life sentences, and why life sentences are actually counterproductive to public safety.
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NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Robert Holbrook, who was given a life sentence, and Ashley Nellis, co-author of the book “The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences.”
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
The criminal justice bill that just passed Congress has renewed hope for those incarcerated in the U.S. prison system. Among the reforms,MORE »
