@article{859178,
      recid = {859178},
      author = {Van Zyl Smit, Dirk, and Appleton, Catherine,},
      title = {Life imprisonment : a global human rights analysis /},
      pages = {1 online resource (xvi, 447 pages) :},
      abstract = {Life imprisonment has replaced capital punishment as the  most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide.  As a consequence, it has become the leading issue in  international criminal justice reform. In the first global  survey of prisoners serving life terms, Dirk van Zyl Smit  and Catherine Appleton argue for a human rights-based  reappraisal of this exceptionally harsh punishment. The  authors estimate that nearly half a million people face  life behind bars, and the number is growing as  jurisdictions both abolish death sentences and impose life  sentences more freely for crimes that would never have  attracted capital punishment. Life Imprisonment explores  this trend through systematic data collection and legal  analysis, persuasively illustrated by detailed maps,  charts, tables, and comprehensive statistical appendices.  The central question--can life sentences be just?--is  straightforward, but the answer is complicated by the vast  range of penal practices that fall under the umbrella of  life imprisonment. Van Zyl Smit and Appleton contend that  life imprisonment without possibility of parole can never  be just. While they have some sympathy for the  jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, they  conclude that life imprisonment, in many of the ways it is  implemented worldwide, infringes on the requirements of  justice. They also examine the outliers--states that have  no life imprisonment--to highlight the possibility of  abolishing life sentences entirely. Life Imprisonment is an  incomparable resource for lawyers, lawmakers,  criminologists, policy scholars, and penal-reform advocates  concerned with balancing justice and public safety.--},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/859178},
}