By David Riley, Director of Corrections’ Psychological Service
A commonly held belief in correctional circles is that when prisoners have little to lose, such as those who have been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, they are difficult to manage in an institution. Despite the widespread use of sentences of life-without parole (48 states of the US now have this as a penalty); there is virtually no research which bears directly on the relationship between that sentence and institutional management.
In a recent article, Cunningham and Sorensen note that assumptions concerning the management of offenders who will never be released have impacted policy at every stage, from sentencing to the level of security into which such offenders may be managed. For example, Texas was one of the last states to introduce the life-without-parole sentencing option, and one of the arguments against that sentence, (as opposed to the death penalty) was that such sentences would result in very significant difficulties in the area of prison management. The authors also note that, typically, lifewithout-parole prisoners are retained in high levels of security, which also appears to reflect an expectation of greater institutional misconduct from these prisoners as well as an increased motivation for escape.
Notwithstanding this dominant view regarding the difficulties in managing life-without-parole prisoners, others have argued that there are good theoretical reasons to believe that longer-term prisoners may actually have a positive influence on institutional climate as they are likely to have a vested interest in a regime that is less aggressive and volatile.
In the first large-scale study attempting to throw some light on this issue, this article examined the records of 1,897 prisoners who were serving sentences of lifewithout- parole in Florida. Their institutional behaviour was compared to that of groups of other prisoners (over 9,000 in total) who were serving sentences of upwards of ten years, with the longest serving comparison group being those having a parole period of upwards of 30 years. The groups were very similar in terms of basic social and demographic characteristics and the level of security under which they were confined. Comparisons were then made of the behaviour of the life-withoutparole prisoners with the other prisoners in relation to various levels of rule-breaking and, particularly, violent misconducts. Although the frequency of violent behaviour decreased as the severity of the acts increased, more than one quarter of all the long-term inmates were involved in acts involving potential violence during the three and one-third year period of the study.
Most significantly, this investigation found that prisoners serving terms of less than 20 years were the ones most often involved in prison violence, however it was defined. Those required to serve more than 20 years were the least likely to be involved in prison violence. Those prisoners serving life-without-parole had a rate of institutional violence which fell between those serving less than 20 years and those serving more than 30 years, although the differences among these groups were very small.
The authors conclude that the view that life-without parole results in prisoners who are predatory and unmanageable is without foundation, as is the view that they pose a greater risk to institutional staff. These findings also have implications for the classification practices applied to such offenders, as they may be much more capable of ‘mainstreaming’ than previously thought.
Perhaps most importantly, it is clear that the prospect of parole is not the only or overriding factor which may influence behaviour of long-serving prisoners.
Corrections staff can request a copy of this paper from the Head Office Information Centre - email: infocentre@corrections.govt.nz
1 Cunningham M.D., and Sorrensen J.R. (2006), Nothing to Lose? A Comparative Examination of Prison Misconduct Rates Among Life-Without-Parole and Other Long-Term High-Security Inmates. Criminal Justice and Behaviour, 33, pp683-705.
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