Over 3,000 US Prisoners Serving Life Without Parole For Non-Violent Crimes

[Purveyor]

ACLU report chronicles thousands of lives ruined by life sentences for crimes such as shoplifting or possession of a crack pipe

Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Wednesday 13 November 2013


65% of the prisoners identified nationwide by the ACLU are African American. In Louisiana, that proportion rises to 91%. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

At about 12.40pm on 2 January 1996, Timothy Jackson took a jacket from the Maison Blanche department store in New Orleans, draped it over his arm, and walked out of the store without paying for it. When he was accosted by a security guard, Jackson said: “I just needed another jacket, man.”

A few months later Jackson was convicted of shoplifting and sent to Angola prison in Louisiana. That was 16 years ago. Today he is still incarcerated in Angola, and will stay there for the rest of his natural life having been condemned to die in jail. All for the theft of a jacket, worth $159.

Jackson, 53, is one of 3,281 prisoners in America serving life sentences with no chance of parole for non-violent crimes. Some, like him, were given the most extreme punishment short of execution for shoplifting; one was condemned to die in prison for siphoning petrol from a truck; another for stealing tools from a tool shed; yet another for attempting to cash a stolen cheque.

“It has been very hard for me,” Jackson wrote to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as part of its new report on life without parole for non-violent offenders. “I know that for my crime I had to do some time, but a life sentence for a jacket value at $159. I have met people here whose crimes are a lot badder with way less time.”

Senior officials at Angola prison refused to allow the Guardian to speak to Jackson, on grounds that it might upset his victims – even though his crime was victim-less. But his sister Loretta Lumar did speak to the Guardian. She said that the last time she talked by phone with her brother he had expressed despair. “He told me, 'Sister, this has really broke my back. I'm ready to come out.'”

MORE...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/13/us-prisoners-sentences-life-non-violent-crimes

[grasswire]

1. and the taxpayers are paying $40,000 a year to contain each of them

$159 jacket.

$40,000/year x 30 years.

Do the math.

Money is diverted from our schools, parks, health care, addiction treatment, jobs, etc. directly to the pockets of the prison industrial complex.

Now, THAT is a crime.

[Niceguy1]

2. it was his fourth strike so it wasn't just for the jacket.

I don't know if they modified their stirke law like California did. There yoi have to be s very bad person to strike out.

[BronxBoy]

4. The article details his crimes....

seems like petty thefts on the face of it. This guy is in jail for life while bankers who stole millions go free.

[Niceguy1]

5. I agree

10-20 year woukd have been enough

[BronxBoy]

6. For stealing what appears to be less than 1,000 bucks worth of stuff???

How about 5 years in a rehab or solid drug treatment program?

[Sgent]

8. No they haven't

get convicted in any 3rd felony (4th non-violent) and your in prison for life. Neither the judge nor the prosecutor has any say in the sentence....

[noiretextatique]

11. it makes no sense...they are nothing but fodder for the for-profit prison system

yet another way public funds are used to create private profits

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. I seem to be saying this a lot lately....what a rotten country this is.

[Blue_Tires]

7. Simple math...

A for-profit prison system + racial/class profiling + a political atmosphere where even liberal Dems must campaign on being "tough on crime" = Life sentences for petty theft...

[noiretextatique]

10. meanwhile...

george bush, cheney, and wall street CEOs walk around free and those criminals hurt millions. JUSTUS!!!!! and that asshole zimmerman murdered a kid, and he's considered some kind of hero to some. that is the racist hellhole that is american JUSTUS.

[Sgent]

9. Quote from the warden of Angola (Lousiana)

“It's ridiculous, because the name of our business is 'corrections' – to correct deviant behaviour. If I'm a successful warden and I do my job and we correct the deviant behaviour, then we should have a parole hearing. I need to keep predators in these big old prisons, not dying old men.”

[Go Vols]

12. Kick