Death by Prison: The Emergence of Life without Parole and Perpetual Confinement
Author: Christopher Seeds
Publisher: University of California Press, 2022. 288 pages.
Reviewer: Stuti Kokkalera | June 2023
What makes Death by Prison compelling is the historical approach to understanding why and how perpetual confinement became an accepted social practice. Specifically, the use of archival data, survey of state legislations, and other related historical material from the 1970s through the mid-1990s taps into a substantial aspect of the mass incarceration complex in the form of life without parole (LWOP). Critically, the book does what Seeds asks on page 8: “What accounts for the shifts in penal practices and the social imagination whereby the United States has become accustomed to imprisoning individuals until death, without reevaluation, and without any reasonable expectation of release”? Part 1 of the book (chapters 1 to 3) delves into the foundational by providing the historical context of LWOP sentences. The second part of the book (chapters 4 to 6) draws on the examples of specific states to examine how upheavals in social and legal settings led to the growth of perpetual confinement across the country. The book’s final part (chapters 7 to 9) narrates how we have arrived at the contemporary understanding of LWOP sentences as death by prison.
There are several interesting points made in the book. First, Seeds does a masterful job of busting the myth of how LWOP replaced the death penalty. As he astutely points out, there has always been perpetual confinement, though it was used as an exceptional form of punishment. It was also rare because of executive clemency. For most of the 20th century, “a life sentence without parole was not so different from a life sentence with parole” (p. 42). Drawing on the example of Florida in chapter 4, Seeds highlights how much the growth of LWOP occurred outside of capital punishment. Where life in prison once meant an average sentence of ten years before parole eligibility, by the late 1970s, the punishment for a “life felony” became a mandatory minimum of thirty years. As the scope of life offenses expanded, perpetual confinement became the new mandatory minimum term, leading to Florida having the highest LWOP population in the country.
Seeds also makes the point that imposing LWOP is not simply about incapacitation. As a thread throughout the book, an LWOP sentence is also about cruelty and the lack of hope. In chapter 3, Seeds walks us through U.S. Supreme Court cases to illustrate how the use of LWOP can become widely accepted even for children convicted of nonhomicide offenses until they were officially invalidated (Graham v. Florida, 2010). While an LWOP sentence is no longer acceptable as an automatic term for those under the age of eighteen (Miller v. Alabama, 2012), it is still permissible as a discretionary sentence (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 2016). While Seeds does not delve into Jones v. Mississippi (2021) in detail, the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of a discretionary LWOP resentence without requiring a specific fact-finding hearing reiterates the support for perpetual confinement— irrespective of the age of the individual at the time of the crime.
The expansion of life sentences is primarily due to the increasing use of LWOP and virtual life, which comes in the form of lengthy mandatory minimum or maximum sentences. Interestingly, when such sentences were first introduced into legislation, the group that initially hesitated to provide support were prison staff and administrators. While LWOP was touted by legislators as a mechanism for public safety, especially with the backing from victim advocacy groups, the immediacy of the sentence ignored the real human consequences for the incarcerated and the staff who would be forced to take care of them for several decades. The cruelty of LWOP is reflected in that there is less incentive to provide programming “knowing that a person serving LWOP will not leave prison” (p. 181). Additionally, the collateral consequences included breaking community ties for the incarcerated. In other words, how can we expect reformation when there is no scope or hope for it?
However, across states pointed out in the book, legislative referendums supporting LWOP were a function of time, place, and politics. In chapter 6, Seeds shows us how commutation practices in Pennsylvania were restructured to the point that all life sentences are essentially life without the possibility of parole since the 1940s. Still, clemency for a life sentence was “a well-oiled administrative channel, but it was also informal, idiosyncratic, and even somewhat personal” (page 107). With prison uprisings marked by racial hostilities starting in the 1960s, Governor Shapp was responsible for reforming the prison clemency process. In 1974, a new bill expanded parole eligibility for life sentences (except for first-degree murder) though there was confusion over the mechanisms for release. Incarcerated individuals sought the help of courts to clarify their post-conviction rights. But by 1980, the rhetoric, like in other parts of the country, had shifted to becoming tough on crime. Clemency rates decreased during Governor Thornburgh’s administration while there was a simultaneous expansion of prison facilities based on new legislation codifying harsher sentencing.
In the same chapter, Seeds also relates the story of Reginald McFadden, a Black man who had received a life sentence for the murder of an elderly woman and was later arrested in New York in 1994 for rape after his release by Governor Casey and Lieutenant Governor Singel. This case happened at a time when pardon board reform was in full swing, and McFadden’s arrest put a dent in Singel’s gubernatorial prospects. A few months later, in May 1995, another formerly incarcerated lifer, Robert Simon, who was paroled after serving twelve years of a twenty-year sentence, was indicted in neighboring New Jersey for the murder of a patrol officer. Both these incidents affected prison releases with the retrenchment of clemency. These stories are not unique to Pennsylvania. A few years earlier, Willie Horton’s conviction of rape while on furlough from the Massachusetts prison system put a significant dent in governor Michael Dukakis’ campaign for the presidency in 1988. The incident also led to a sharp curtailing of furlough and prison work-release programs across the state. A little over two decades later, Dominic Cinelli, released on parole, killed a police officer in a botched robbery attempt. Five out of seven Massachusetts state parole board members resigned in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and parole release specifically for lifers dropped for nearly a decade (see Cramer, 2018). All this to state, as Seeds does, that significant upheavals in racial discrimination, prisoner rights advocacy and isolated incidents of individuals under supervision committing crimes have shaped the need for perpetual confinement.
Moreover, the historical approach in the book further shows that legislation should have noticed the nuances in how perpetual confinement is a stopgap measure. As Seeds notes in chapter 9, by drawing on the example of Florida, prison building was an immediate fix. The day-to-day realities of the costs of running prisons and administrative concerns needed to be addressed. While prison officials such as wardens initially pushed against prison expansion, ultimately, curtailing parole and increasing the use of LWOP meant that prison administrators had to get on board with expanding the capacity of their facilities.
The expansion of LWOP, as Seeds points out, has led to prison systems bearing the burden of caring for the elderly—many of whom were sentenced decades earlier to life without any possibility of release. Nellis’ (2021) reporting shows that nearly 30% of all those serving life are considered elderly. Prison confinement tends to age individuals much faster, where research has indicated that someone as young as 50 or 55 years is defined as an elderly individual (Amalfi Marques et al., 2022). The shrinking of clemency powers and restricted use of parole in many states has further contributed to the unyielding expansion of prisons in terms of infrastructure and population increases, contradicting criminological research on the age-crime curve. Seeds makes this point by quoting Morris Dee, then director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “When you get toothless and bedridden, you’re not a danger to anyone” (p. 161). Yet, states are slow to adopt mechanisms such as geriatric release programs that would alleviate the pressures on the correctional system and the elderly individuals in prison.
In sum, Death by Prison is a critical examination of how LWOP has endured as a “typical” punishment that is not just about incapacitation but reaffirms the retributive aspect of punishment. Today, LWOP is not just one type of sentence; it is central to the American penal policy. In conjunction, virtual or de facto life sentences quickly contribute to the LWOP population, where many are serving lengthy mandatory terms with no hope or avenue for release. Seeds shows us how we got here and gets readers to think: where can we go from here?
References:
Beatriz Amalfi Marques, et al., Aging in Prison: Understanding the Needs of Elderly Incarcerated Populations, Handbook on Ineqs. in Sent’g and Corr.
Among Marginalized Populations Vol. 7. (2022).
Maria Cramer, Parole Board Still Slow to Release Inmates Eight Years After Ex-Convict Killed Officer, Critics Say, Bos. Globe (June 25, 2018).
Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010).
Jones v. Mississippi, 141 S. Ct. 1307 (2021).
Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012).
Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016).
Ashley Nellis, No End in Sight: America’s Enduring Reliance on Life Imprisonment, The Sent’g Project (2021).
Stuti S. Kokkalera is an assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at Sam Houston State University.
