CounterPunch, 08/14/24: “Walter Bourque, Jr., has been incarcerated in New Hampshire for 68 years for the murder of a 4-year-old girl in December 1955.  Kenneth Nicely has been incarcerated in Arkansas for 65 years for killing a police officer.  And Francis “Frank” Smith served 72 years in a Connecticut facility for his part in the killing of a night watchman until 2022 when, at 97 years of age, was released under “supervised parole” to a nursing home.

In the early ’70s, the number of individuals in prison in the U.S. was less than 200,000; as of December 31, 2022, there were 1,230,100 in prison. The “modern” era of prison executions dates from the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in January 1977; as of November 30, 2023, 1,582 people have been executed.

A 2022 U.S. Senate report found the Dept of Justice failed to meet the requirements of Death in Custody Reporting Act (2000) and its reauthorization (2014) by failing to identify more than 900 deaths in prisons and local jails in 2021. The report said the DOJ’s poor data collection and reporting “undermined transparency and congressional oversight of deaths in custody.”

The Sentencing Project estimated that in 2020, 203,865 people were serving life sentences — either life without parole (LWOP), life with parole (LWP) or virtual life (50 years or more).  On average, such prisoners serve 12 years between the imposition of a death sentence and execution.

It notes that 30 percent of lifers are 55 years old or more, amounting to more than 61,417 people. In addition, 3,972 people serving life sentences have been convicted for a drug-related offense and 38 percent of these are in the federal prison system. And, not surprisingly, more than two-thirds of those serving life sentences are people of color.”

Read the full article here.