The Hip-Hop Summit Youth Council Launches “Law & Prison Reform” Campaign to Support Devastating Report
Campaign will use the Influence and Strength of the Late Great Nelson Mandela who Spent 27 years in Prison to Achieve Justice by Acquiring United Nations Support for Human Rights
By Charles Fisher and Randy Fisher @HHSYC
Former President Bill Clinton and Mandela stand in the cell where Mandela lived for 18 of his 27 years in prison.
December 5, 2013 was a sad day for the entire world because Nelson Mandela, one of the greatest “Civil & Human Rights” leaders our modern world has ever known, was called home by the Creator. What he endured and achieved under the harsh “Slave Mentality Rule” of Apartheid was a modern day miracle. We offer our condolences to his family for their loss and will continue to do all we can to make sure that his sacrifices for justice and equality will not be in vain. Mr. Mandela served 27 years in a rough tough South African prison, and there was a point in time when he did not even have a toilet to relieve himself in his cell.
Regardless of the inhumane treatment of those incarcerated and free in his country, he stayed focused on a non-violent agenda hoping to bring all of South Africa together as one. A dream that many thought would never come to pass, but Nelson Mandela became the first elected President of a free “Post Apartheid” South Africa.
Nelson Mandela speaks at the United Nations on Human Rights issues in
South Africa.
This monumental feat changed the world forever. It is our hope that we can learn from his experience and use his wisdom to reform our prisons here in America, which sometimes reminds us of the horrors of the South African Penal System. You see if we can’t get justice from our elected officials, we may have to take our case of Human Rights Violations to the United Nations. Maybe with the help of the world we can finally get justice in the United States where we are 5% of the world’s population but represent 25% of the prison population, incarcerating more than any industrialized nation on this planet. Are we no different than the South African government before Mandela became President, but no one wants to talk about it? Well maybe it’s time!
As we enjoy another holiday season, a time when Turkeys are being pardoned to keep up with tradition, many are asking our President what about all those non-violent offenders doing life in prison? If we can spend time pardoning a few Turkeys we have to give some attention to real life situations currently taking place in our Criminal Justice System today. We know that tradition is important but what about giving some attention to the inmates and families of those on lockdown?
Some of them have life threatening illness and are eligible for “Compassionate Release,” but the Bureau of Prisons refuses to follow the law and allow them spend their last days with their families. Is this what we have become as a country? We all know racial disparities plague our criminal justice system at every stage. But did you know that an estimated 65% of the people who will be behind bars until they die because of a nonviolent offense are Black?
Recently, the ACLU published an in-depth study of people imprisoned in the U.S. with no chance of parole for nonviolent offenses – including relatively minor drug and property crimes such as taking a wallet from a hotel room or serving as the middleman in the sale of $10 worth of marijuana. We found that at least 3,278 prisoners are serving these sentences in federal and state prisons combined.
A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses (Click here to download the report) documents the thousands of lives ruined and families destroyed by sentencing people to die behind bars for nonviolent offenses and analyzes the laws that led to these harsh sentences. The 110 prisoners profiled in A Living Death are extreme examples of the millions of lives ruined by the persistent ratcheting up of our sentencing laws over the last 40 years. As the report makes clear, we must change our sentencing practices to make our justice system smart, fair and humane.
In addition to interviews, correspondence and a survey of hundreds of prisoners serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses the ACLU based “A Living Death” upon court records and data from the United States Sentencing Commission, Federal Bureau of Prisons and state Departments of Corrections obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and open records requests.
The report contains the in-depth stories of 110 individual prisoners waiting to die behind bars for nonviolent offenses, as well as accounts from the prisoners’ parents, children and spouses who have been punished emotionally and economically by their loved ones’ permanent absence. These profiles cover the prisoner’s lives before and after their sentencing, the circumstances of their nonviolent crimes, and the terrible reality of their sentences.
Life without parole for nonviolent offenses is cruel, inhumane and wasteful
Sentencing someone to life without the possibility of parole is the harshest punishment possible, except for the death penalty. And yet, the federal government and some states impose this punishment on people for nonviolent drug and property offenses. The federal courts account for 63% of the 3,278 life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent offenses. In the federal system, 96% are serving LWOP for drug crimes. More than 18% of federal 
prisoners surveyed by the ACLU are serving LWOP for their first offenses. The remaining prisoners are in Louisiana (429 prisoners), Florida (270), Alabama (244), Mississippi (93), South Carolina (88), Oklahoma (49), Georgia (20), Illinois (10) and Missouri (1). This practice is unnecessarily devastating and wasteful; the ACLU estimates that federal and state taxpayers spend $1.8 billion keeping these people in prison for life instead of more appropriate terms.
Life without parole for nonviolent crimes is part of a larger problem—mandatory sentencing and the failed War on Drugs
The prevalence of life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent offenses is a symptom of the relentless onslaught of more than 4 decades of the War on Drugs and policies such as 3-strikes and mandatory minimum sentencing. This report is proof: 79% of people serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses were convicted of violating our nation’s drug laws.
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. 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.
LWOP sentences for nonviolent crimes are plagued by racial disparities
There is a staggering racial disparity in life-without-parole sentencing for nonviolent offenses. Blacks are disproportionately represented in the nationwide prison and jail population, but the disparities are even worse among those serving life without parole, and worse still among those serving the sentence for a nonviolent crime. A Living Death also offers the first racial breakdown of the population serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses nationwide: we estimate based on data we received from the federal government and several states, and on our own surveys of people serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses that 65% of them are Black, 18% white and 16% Latino, and the disparity is worse in some states.
We can take a smarter, fairer and more humane approach
As striking as they are, the numbers documented in this report underrepresent the true number of people who will die in prison after being convicted of a nonviolent crime in this country. The thousands of people noted above do not include the substantial number of prisoners who will die behind bars after being convicted of a crime classified as “violent” (such as a conviction for assault after a bar fight), nor do the numbers include “de facto” LWOP sentences that exceed the convicted person’s natural lifespan, such as a sentence of 350 years for a series of nonviolent drug sales. Although less-violent and de facto LWOP cases fall outside of the scope of this report, they remain a troubling manifestation of extreme sentencing policies in this country.
Many of the nonviolent crimes for which these prisoners are serving life without parole would be more appropriately addressed either outside the criminal justice system altogether or with significantly shorter prison terms. It’s time to get rid of our extreme sentencing laws, particularly those that lead to life without parole sentences for nonviolent offenses. To start, Congress and state legislatures should repeal all laws that result in sentences of life without parole for nonviolent offenses. President Obama and state governors should use their executive clemency powers to reduce the sentences of people serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses. Help us fight extreme sentences by signing this petition (Click Here).
Ever wonder what could land you in prison for the rest of your life? For thousands of people it was crimes as minor as shoplifting a few cameras from Wal-Mart, stealing a $159 jacket or serving as a middleman in the sale of $10 of marijuana. It’s time to end extreme sentencing and reduce the prison terms of people who have been sentenced to a living death because of a nonviolent crime. We need laws that are smart, fair, cost-efficient and humane and as tax paying citizens we demand it.
A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses is a co-production of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program (HRP) and the ACLU’s Center for Justice. Jennifer Turner is the report’s author. Publicity and marketing support is being provided by P.O.G Marketing & Media. For more info on the petition, the report or to join the campaign hit us up at: info@hhsyc.org.
