Life Sentences, by the Numbers by According to a report by The Sentencing Project published in January 2025, almost 200,000 prisoners in the United States are serving life sentences. The report—the non-profit organization’s sixth national census on this issue—included data related to sentences of life with parole, life without parole …

Percentage Of Prisoners Serving Life Without Parole Is Up Despite Overall Decrease in Prison Population by Anthony Accurso 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 …

New Orleans Public Defender’s “Redeem Team” Says: “Re-entry Is Never Over” by Journalist Radley Balko published an interview on March 15, 2025, with five former state prisoners in Louisiana now employed as peer advocates with the Public Defender’s office in Orleans Parish. Known as the “redeem team,” the five men …

Michigan Supreme Court Greenlights Adding Restitution At Resentencing of Former Juveniles Sentenced to LWOP by On July 8, 2024, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that imposing a new restitution obligation—by retroactive application of restitution statutes enacted after a criminal defendant committed his underlying offense—could nevertheless happen during a resentencing …

California Resentences 15 Condemned Prisoners to Life Without Parole by On April 5, 2024, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said that 15 prisoners on California’s death row from the county would be resentenced to life without parole. Rosen utilized a state law empowering district attorneys to reassess sentences …

Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals Grants Credit to Prisoner’s LWOP Sentence by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney On February 9, 2024, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals held that even though Henry Neal Ferguson III had been sentenced to life in state prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP), he …

Washington Parole Board Failed to Meaningfully Apply Presumption of Release for Prisoner Sentenced to LWOP as Juvenile by On April 11, 2024, the Washington Court of Appeals refused to reconsider an earlier finding that the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB) failed to meaningfully apply the statutory presumption that prisoners …

California Supreme Court Refuses Challenge to LWOP Sentence Imposed for Crime Committed After Age 18 by Under California Penal Code § 3051, prisoners who were 18 to 25 years old when they committed certain crimes are eligible for parole after serving 15, 20 or 25 years, even if sentenced to life …

With Push to Empty North Carolina’s Death Row Comes Another to End Life Without Parole by Leaving office at the end of 2024, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) faces pressure from a coalition of 22 nonprofits to commute the sentences of all 136 prisoners on the state’s death row …