Marc Mauer & Ashley Nellis, "The Meaning of Life"

In the U.S. more than 200,000 people are serving sentences of life imprisonment. Though these prisoners pose less of a threat as they age, by remaining incarcerated their geriatric care adds substantially to prison costs. In this compelling follow-up to his groundbreaking Race to Incarcerate, Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, and Nellis, a Sentencing Project research analyst and author of A Return to Justice, make a powerful case for ending life sentences. Arguing that prison terms should be limited to no more than twenty years, they draw on the experiences of six people impacted by such sentencing to show that mandatory life terms serve no practical purpose and have no moral justification.

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Produced by Tom Warren