It seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all. —-Sainte Augustine
There is no doubt that Americans would be shocked beyond belief had this been occurring in any other country. A sentence of life imprisonment, without any possibility of parole for crimes which are disproportionate to say the least to the sentence and punishment rendered. Life without parole for selling LSD at a concert, for siphoning gas from a truck and for writing a bad cheque are just some examples of such crimes which have rendered sentences which are impossible to comprehend on logical levels.
These events are just not out of the blue. This is occurring every day in federal and state courts in the United States. Judges, being bound by mandatory sentencing laws that they themselves are openly against, are sending people away to prison without parole for non-violent drug and property crimes. Statistics show that in about 20% of the cases, it was the person’s first offense.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU), as of 2012, 3,278 people were sentenced for such crimes. This number however does not include sentences such as serving 350 years for the nonviolent sale of drugs. Nor does it include crimes which are legally defined as “violent” even they are in reality not so, such as attempting to steal an unoccupied car.
This report is based on data from the federal court system and nine states. In many of these cases, the judge had no choice but to issue such harsh sentences as federal or state law mandated a sentence
without parole. At times the justice system cannot pursue with a milder sentence even if it feels right.
This has caused over the past four decades for the American prison population to reach over two million people, making this the highest incarceration rate in the world. It has given rise to yet another problem: the racial disparity in federal prisons. Blacks are 20 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to life without parole for nonviolent crimes.
The ACLU report also states that the cost of imprisoning these 3,278 people comes with a price tag of $1.78 billion.
Some states are attempting to decrease this mass incarceration rate and Congress has been considering two non-partisan bills which would allow judges to issue more logical and appropriate sentences unbound by mandatory minimums but there is still a long way to go.
Only one-fifth of all countries allow life sentences without parole and even then, most of these countries reserve it for crimes such as murder and repeated violent crimes.
These statistics and occurrences make it extremely difficult to fathom how the term “civilized” can be applied to the legal and justice system in the United States. Such cruel practices have been proven ineffective and thus have no place in an industrialized, democratic system. It is high time for the United States to look within itself to correct such cruel and unusual punishment.
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