Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage, arson, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1885.
Mark David Chapman is an incarcerated American who murdered former Beatle John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of his apartment at The Dakota, Chapman fired five shots at Lennon from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver. Lennon was hit four times from the back. Chapman remained at the scene reading J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye until he was arrested by police. He planned to cite the novel as his manifesto.
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a prison in Bedford Hills, New York, is the largest women's prison in New York state. The prison previously opened under the name Westfield State Farm in 1901.
Parole is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or else they may be rearrested and returned to prison.
Attica Correctional Facility is a maximum security campus New York State prison in the town of Attica, New York, operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. It was constructed in the 1930s and held many of the most dangerous convicts of the time.
California Men's Colony (CMC) is a male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Sundiata Acoli is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1974 for murdering a New Jersey state trooper. Acoli was granted parole in 2022 at the age of 85.
The Shepherd's Bush murders, also known as the Massacre of Braybrook Street, involved the murder of three police officers in London by Harry Roberts and two others in 1966.
Clinton Correctional Facility is a New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision maximum security state prison for men located in the Village of Dannemora, New York. The prison is sometimes colloquially referred to as Dannemora, although its name is derived from its location in Clinton County, New York. The southern perimeter wall of the prison borders New York State Route 374. Church of St. Dismas, the Good Thief, a church built by inmates, is located within the walls. The prison is sometimes referred to as New York's Little Siberia, due to the cold winters in Dannemora and the isolation of the upstate area. It is the largest maximum security prison and the third oldest prison in New York. The staff includes about a thousand officers and supervisors.
Harry Maurice Roberts is an English career criminal and murderer who in 1966 instigated the Shepherd's Bush murders, in which three police officers were shot dead in London. The murders took place after plainclothes officers approached a Standard Vanguard estate car, in which Roberts and two other men were sitting in Braybrook Street near Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. Roberts feared the officers would discover firearms his gang were planning to use in a robbery. He killed two, while one of his accomplices shot dead the third.
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases, however, a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.
The Parole Board of Canada is the Canadian government agency that is responsible for reviewing and issuing parole and criminal pardons in Canada. It operates under the auspices of Public Safety Canada.
The San Quentin Six were six inmates at San Quentin State Prison in the U.S. state of California, who were accused of participating in an August 21, 1971 escape attempt that left six people dead, including George Jackson, a co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family, two prisoners and three guards.
The innocent prisoner's dilemma, or parole deal, is a detrimental effect of a legal system in which admission of guilt can result in reduced sentences or early parole. When an innocent person is wrongly convicted of a crime, legal systems which need the individual to admit guilt — as, for example, a prerequisite step leading to parole — punish an innocent person for their integrity, and reward a person lacking in integrity. There have been cases where innocent prisoners were given the choice between freedom, in exchange for claiming guilt, and remaining imprisoned and telling the truth. Individuals have died in prison rather than admit to crimes that they did not commit.
David Anthony McGreavy is an English convicted murderer who in a drunken rage killed three children, aged four, two and nine months, in the United Kingdom in 1973. He was in the news in 2013 when an anonymity order imposed in 2009 was lifted based on findings that there was a public interest in his application for parole and that there was no immediate danger to his life. He was held in a vulnerable prisoners' unit, where he spent most of his 40 years in prison until he was released on parole in December 2018.
Joseph Ligon is an American former prisoner. He was America's longest-serving prisoner who was convicted to a life sentence as a minor. At 15, he was found guilty of murder by association and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the US Supreme Court had ruled in 2016 that all juvenile life sentences without parole were retroactively unconstitutional, he was released in 2021, having spent 68 years in jail.
Robert Brown is a Scottish man who spent 25 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. In January 1977, Annie Walsh was beaten to death in her home in Manchester, England and Brown was first interrogated and beaten by the police officers investigating this crime. Under duress, Brown signed a confession and was found guilty at trial. He maintained his innocence throughout his prison sentence even going so far as denying himself parole by not admitting to the crime. He was released on appeal in 2002 and is thought to be one of the longest serving victims of a miscarriage of justice in the United Kingdom.
Chester Otto Weger is an American man who was convicted in 1961 of the murder of one of three women found slain at Starved Rock State Park the previous year. He was held at Pinckneyville Correctional Center and at one time was the longest serving inmate incarcerated by the State of Illinois as well as the third longest in state history before his release on February 21, 2020. On November 21, 2019, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board granted parole to Weger by a vote of 9–4. He was released on parole February 21, 2020.
