THE GUARDIAN: For the growing prison population of lifers trapped in a black hole of hopelessness, even death might seem a better alternative, says Erwin James.
In 1979 the average time a "lifer" spent in prison in the UK was nine years. Now it's around 15 or 16, although minimum terms of 30 years plus are regularly handed down by the courts to those who commit the most serious offences.
As a consequence, "doing life" in a British prison has never been more arduous. Nobody outside is complaining, however, although the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, did comment a while ago that the increasingly long fixed terms given to those whose crimes merit a life sentence means that we are in danger of creating a whole generation of "geriatric lifers".
Most victims of life-sentenced prisoners would be hard pressed to be concerned, I guess. The idea that people who cause suffering to others deserve all they get is a perfectly reasonable one, and there is a still a significant number of the law-abiding majority who believe that life should mean life. Journey to nowhere (more)
Mark Alexander
