Percentage Of Prisoners Serving Life Without Parole Is Up Despite Overall Decrease in Prison Population
A new report by The Sentencing Project (TSP) shows that the percentage of prisoners serving terms of life without parole—or “death by incarceration”—nationwide has increased, even as overall prison populations decreased. It is TSP’s sixth national census of people serving life sentences, which includes ‘life with the possibility of parole’; ‘life without the possibility of parole’; and ‘virtual life sentences,’ defined as those of 50 years or longer.
Researchers found that, since 2003, the percentage of prisoners serving a “death by incarceration” sentence increased 68%. This population was down 4% since 2020, but that’s relative to a shrinking of the total prison population by 13%. About one in six prisoners is serving such a sentence, totaling almost 200,000 prisoners across the United States.
Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. has only about 4% of the total population, yet it “holds an estimated 40% of the world’s life-sentenced population,” TSP found, “including 83% of persons serving LWOP.”
Nearly half of those serving life sentences are Black, far greater than that group’s 14% share of the U.S. population. Among women in prison, one in eleven is serving life, with those aged 55 or older accounting for two-thirds of the life sentences. Among all prisoners, nearly 70,000 were under age 25 when their crimes were committed, and about a third of those have no possibility for parole.
Relying on a body of existing evidence, the study’s authors remarked that “[e]xtensive research has demonstrated that life sentences fail to achieve the primary objectives of imprisonment, which include deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation.” However, the U.S. justice system has long ignored evidence-based practices in favor of retributive sentencing. The report notes that “in the past 40 years… [l]awmakers have expanded the use of life sentences, applying them to a wider range of offenses, and increased the mandatory time people must serve before becoming eligible for parole.” Meanwhile “[o]pportunities for early release based on good behavior have diminished, and wait times for parole review have lengthened substantially,” the report added.
With “little consideration for reform or second chances,” the report concludes, any attempt to strike a balance between punishment and rehabilitation has shifted focus and is now clearly “centered on punishment.” See: A Matter of Life: The Scope and Impact of Life and Long-Term Imprisonment in the United States, TSP (Jan. 2025).