Incarcerated for life

The count of those condemned to life imprisonment is steadily increasing. Between 2014 and 2020, this figure surged by 17% in Canada, 28% in South Africa, and 50% in Thailand. Nearly 500,000 individuals are currently serving life sentences worldwide. This penalty stands among the severest. Its application is expanding within a climate of growing repression as the pathway towards universal abolition of the death penalty takes shape.

Although a majority of nations stipulate a review of life sentences after a certain duration, such reassessments do not invariably lead to positive outcomes. Others enforce true life imprisonment, offering little to no prospect of release. Consequently, individuals serving life terms may ultimately meet their demise behind bars. Only a handful of European countries and most Latin American nations do not include life imprisonment in their penal codes.

Life imprisonment is increasingly prevalent for drug-related offenses. Policies aimed at combating drug trafficking, possession, and usage amplify the severity of penalties. This trend can be observed, for instance, in Indonesia, Nepal, Lebanon, and Thailand.

In the United States, nearly 45,000 prisoners are serving sentences surpassing their life expectancy. Sentences of 125 years, 880 years, and even 1,200 years in prison are not unheard of. These individuals, serving what amounts to a virtual life sentence, join the ranks of the 160,000 serving terms of life imprisonment. Thus, one in every seven prisoners is effectively incarcerated for life.

The Council of Europe considers a sentence lengthy if it exceeds five years. The organisation has observed a rise in the number and duration of sentences across the continent.

Prolonged sentences are occasionally likened to a slow death penalty. In France, ten individuals serving lengthy terms in Clairvaux prison clandestinely submitted a petition in 2006, advocating for the reinstatement of the death penalty. They condemned the hypocrisy of extended sentences, urging authorities to “end it once and for all” rather than subjecting them to a “slow demise.”