World’s No. 1 Jailer

No other country on the planet puts more of its citizens in cages for life for nonviolent drug offenses than the USA

by Mark J. Perry

It’s been well-documented that the US is the World’s No. 1 Jailer, and imprisons far more of its people than any other country on the planet (716 per 100,000 population), including countries generally thought to be repressive like Myanmar (120 per 100,000), Iran (284 per 100,000), Syria (58 per 100,000), or Cuba (510 per 100,000). It’s also been documented that America’s cruel and failed War on Drugs, launched by President Nixon in 1971, is largely responsible for the country’s shameful status as the World’s No. 1 Incarcerator, see chart above.

A new report released this week from the American Civil Liberties Union ”A Living Death: Life without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses” examines a very disturbing trend that contributes to America’s notoriety as the World’s No. 1 Jailer – the increasing number of nonviolent offenders in the US who are being sentenced to life in prison without parole. As Reason.comreported “The ACLU found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the War on Drugs, mandatory minimums, and “tough-on-crime” policies are to blame” for the more than 3,000 prisoners in America serving life sentences without parole (LWOP) for nonviolent drug and property crimes.

Here are some highlights of the ACLU report:

This report documents the thousands of lives ruined and families destroyed by sentencing people to die behind bars for nonviolent offenses, and includes detailed case studies of 110 such people. It also includes a detailed fiscal analysis tallying the $1.78 billion cost to taxpayers to keep the 3,278 prisoners currently serving LWOP for nonviolent offenses incarcerated for the rest of their lives.

Using data obtained from the Bureau of Prisons and state Departments of Corrections, the ACLU calculates that as of 2012, there were 3,278 prisoners serving Life without parole (LWOP) for nonviolent drug and property crimes in the federal system and in nine states that provided such statistics (there may well be more such prisoners in other states). About 79% of these 3,278 prisoners are serving LWOP for nonviolent drug crimes. Nearly two-thirds of prisoners serving LWOP for nonviolent offenses nationwide are in the federal system; of these, 96% are serving LWOP for drug crimes. More than 18% of federal prisoners surveyed by the ACLU are serving LWOP for their first offenses. Of the states that sentence nonviolent offenders to LWOP, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Oklahoma have the highest numbers of prisoners serving LWOP for nonviolent crimes, largely due to three-strikes and other kinds of habitual offender laws that mandate an LWOP sentence for the commission of a nonviolent crime.

The overwhelming majority (83.4%) of the LWOP sentences for nonviolent crimes surveyed by the ACLU were mandatory. In these cases, the sentencing judges had no choice in sentencing due to laws requiring mandatory minimum periods of imprisonment, habitual offender laws, statutory penalty enhancements, or other sentencing rules that mandated LWOP. Prosecutors, on the other hand, have immense power over defendants’ fates: whether or not to charge a defendant with a sentencing enhancement triggering an LWOP sentence is within their discretion. In case after case reviewed by the ACLU, the sentencing judge said on the record that he or she opposed the mandatory LWOP sentence as too severe but had no discretion to take individual circumstances into account or override the prosecutor’s charging decision.

The United States is virtually alone in its willingness to sentence people to die behind bars for nonviolent crimes. Nearly 100 countries have signed the Rome Statute, which requires that all life sentences be reviewed after 25 years, even for the most heinous offenses, such as war crimes and genocide.

A few countries have even legally abolished LWOP, and a handful of European countries have no statutes that mention life imprisonment, let alone LWOP, even for the most serious violent crimes. According to a University of San Francisco School of Law study, the per capita number of prisoners serving LWOP sentences in the United States is 51 times that of Australia, 173 times that of the United Kingdom, and 29 times that of the Netherlands. Even China and Pakistan provide for a review of life sentences after 25 years’ imprisonment. Commitment to the principles of the fundamental rights to humane treatment, proportionate sentence, and rehabilitation has led a large number of states tode jure or de facto prohibit life-without-parole sentences.

Here’s a video from the ACLU about its report:

The ACLU report documents the thousands of lives ruined and families destroyed by sentencing people to die behind bars for nonviolent offenses, and includes detailed case studies of 110 such people. Here are nine examples of unfortunate Americans who are serving LWOP for various convictions involving the possession or sale of weeds, in some cases for unbelievably small amounts:

1. Dale Wayne Green is serving LWOP in Louisiana for his role as middleman in a sale of $20 worth of weeds to an undercover deputy.

2. Fate Vincent Winslow was homeless when he acted as a go-between in the sale of two small bags of weeds, worth $10 in total, to an undercover police officer.

2. Travis Bourda is serving LWOP for possession of 130 grams (less than 5 ounces) of weeds with intent to distribute.

3. Terrance L. Mosley was sentenced to LWOP for possession of weeds with intent to distribute.

4. Anthony Kelly was sentenced to LWOP for possession of 32 grams of weeds with intent to distribute in 1999, at age 25. Kelly was originally sentenced to 15 years but was resentenced to a mandatory LWOP sentence as a third-strike felony offender based on two prior convictions, one for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in 1995, when he was 21, and the other for simple possession of cocaine in 1993, when he was 19.

5. William Dufries is serving LWOP for driving through Oklahoma with 67 pounds of weeds in his RV.

6. Leland Dodd is serving LWOP in Oklahoma for trying to buy 50 pounds of weeds from an undercover officer, or as he puts it, “talking about buying some weeds.” He was arrested before the sale concluded. In February 2011, 35 year-old Cornell Hood II was sentenced to die in prison for attempting to possess weeds with intent to distribute. Hood was sentenced to life without parole under Louisiana’s habitual offender law because he had two prior convictions for possession of weeds with intent to sell and one conviction for distribution of marijuana.

7. Paul E. Free was arrested in 1994 for participating in a large marijuana conspiracy operated by another man who received a reduced sentence of only two-and-a-half years in exchange for testifying against 31 people, including Free. In 1995, Free was sentenced to a mandatory minimum sentence of LWOP in federal prison on account of two prior 20-year-old weed convictions. Free had pleaded guilty in 1974 to possession with intent to distribute three pounds of weeds, and in 1975 to conspiracy to distribute weeds; the same weed led to both convictions. He says his attorney never told him he was facing a mandatory life term.

8. John Knock, 66, is a first-time offender serving two LWOP sentences for a large marijuana conspiracy. Although Knock had no criminal record, he was sentenced to two life terms plus 20 years for money laundering. Larry Ronald Duke, 66, has served 24 years of his two life-without-parole sentences for a large marijuana conspiracy.

9. William Dekle, 63, has served 22 years of his two mandatory terms of life without parole for conspiracy to import and possess large quantity of weeds.

MP: I’m confident that in a future, more enlightened, advanced, open-minded and tolerant America, we’ll look back on America’s Drug War and the practice of locking people up in cages for life for nonviolent crimes like possessing weeds, with shame, contempt and embarrassment for such cruel, intolerant and inhumane treatment of our fellow man.