How long is a life sentence?

Life should mean life. Lock em up, throw away the key.

Unfortunately, we all hate the idea of having a prison on our doorstep, so our government won't build any, as it will always be opposed by those living near. Solution, put them on platforms out in the north sea - sounds good to me anyway.

Life however under our system does mean 'life'. For however many years you serve, even if paroled, you are released into the community under Licence. This 'supposedly' means that any misdemeanour and your back in prison, to serve more of your sentence. But usually means that they are released to cause more crime, and then get locked up again for the new crime commited.

a life sentence varies depending on the country or the state on which you are referring to.

Normally a life sentence is a 20-25 year imprisonment and in some cases you can apply for parole a few years before you have completed your sentence.

It is common practice that 15 years of imprisonment should be seen as a minimum.

Therefore life imprisonment does not mean life literally but a substantial amount of years from someone's life and i definitely have to agree with you that nowadays you get plenty of examples where the life sentence might last only a mere 10 years. Of course the legal system seem not to have given us an adequate explaination for this!

Yes It Bloody Well Should!

And Capitol Punishment Should Come Back For Paedophiles And Rapists And TERRORISTS!

But In The Uk I Think It's 25 Years

Unless They Changed It Again

But They Can Give You More Than One Life Sentance

And In America Isn't It 40 Years?

Or Is It Life?

Hmmm

Law Is Messed Up Huh

There are two kinds of life sentence: with and without parole. When a lifer is paroled, the parole persists for life, with the result that even a drunk and disorderly conviction can (often does) send the lifer back to the tank to "finish" his sentence.

Some states declare that a defendant is always eligible for parole after serving some proportion of his sentence (in New York, one third except for armed felonies and predicate violent felonies, which require half of the sentence to be served). In such states, sentences such as 147 years make sense.

This results from the theory that the purpose of a correctional system is to return the convict to society to pay his debt by serving some useful purpose in the world instead of leeching three hots and a cot forever.

Of course, some people need to stay inside. In the dark. And from the deep lifer's perspective, capital punishment would be a mercy.

Actually it depends on whether it is life or life without the possibility of parole. Life can be 25 years to life (they usually plea bargain to 15 to 20 years). Life without the possibility of parole is usually behind bars until the offender dies. I don't think sentences are getting shorter it is that way due to overcrowding in prisons. The corrections officers and staff parole those "least likely" to re-offend. Do you remember John Evander Couey? He was a convicted child rapist and killer of Jessica Lundsford. He was "least likely" to re-offend - yet he did and now he will be executed in FL - in about 15 years!

I am NOT a supporter of the death penalty because the appeals process is oh so long and offenders commit suicide or die before their sentence is carried out, however in this case I support the death penalty and I wish they'd just carry out justice.

Actually, in the UK a life sentence is for life. If an offender is considered for release after, say, 12 years, and this release is granted it's "on licence". A lifer is not released entirely, sentence served & time done so to speak, he or she is on licence for the rest of their natural and in theory that licence can be revoked. A judge can recommend that the prisoner is not considered for release for, say, 25 years, or indeed never.

If you are talking imprisonment then it varies according to whether it is statutory - murder is usually a longer sentence than manslaughter, but a lot depends on what the sentencing judge had for his breakfast and has no bearing on the seriousness of the crime. Here in UK it always seems that a person who robs a bank will be given a longer sentence than someone who kills another person. The whole sentencing regime is a farce in my opinion. So yes, life should be for the natural life span of the offender,

It depends upon your jurisdiction. In many states, the punishment for first degree murder is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole... so it's life. In the federal system, "life" means "life." No possibility of supervised release (because there is no parole in the federal system). In some states "life" means "life" but there's a potential for parole in 15, 25 years. In other states, where there's indeterminant sentencing, you get "25 to life" which means that you can be up for parole in 25 years, barring other circumstances.

The problem with "life means life" is that the prisoner no longer has anything to live for... their entire lives will be behind bars. So what's the point of not acting out -- being violent to the wardens or other inmates, trying to do something constructive, working well? Only to avoid being placed in solitary confinement and going crazy. But that's not a very good incentive. So because we want to have control of our prisoners (and because of the signficant burdens placed on our prison system by our 'incarcerate everyone' approach) life becomes shorter and shorter.

Certainly there are some people who should be removed from society for all time, but we need to provide a little bit of hope to even fairly violent people, if for no other reason than prison control.

Its actually infuriating when someone gets life nd then 15 years later, becuase 'they've changed or found god' get out early..While the poor family of some innocent murder victim is left to mourn with no real satifaction that justice has been done...Well in the UK anyways...

I got this of Wikipedia for you, its long, so Im sorry..But its actually quite interesting...

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime, nominally for the entire remaining life of the prisoner, but in fact for a period which varies between jurisdictions: many countries have a maximum possible period of time (usually 50 years) a prisoner may be incarcerated, or require the possibility of parole after a set amount of time.

In jurisdictions without capital punishment, life imprisonment (especially without the possibility of parole) constitutes the most severe form of criminal punishment.

In the UK.A life sentence is a prison term of indeterminate length and in some exceptionally grave cases, a recommendation can be made that a life sentence should mean life. Formerly, the Home Secretary reserved the right to set the "tariff", or minimum length of term, for prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, but politicians were stripped of this power in November 2002 after a successful challenge by convicted double murderer Anthony Anderson. Anderson had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988 with a recommended minimum term of 15 years, but the Home Secretary later informed him that he would have to serve at least 20 years.

The definition varies from one U.S. state to another. Life imprisonment often lasts until the prisoner dies, especially in cases where life imprisonment is imposed as alternative to the death penalty. It is also usual that life terms are given in sentences that are intentionally longer than how long the prisoner is expected to live, e.g. a 200-year sentence for multiple counts of murder

In Uk a life sentence is less than a 'Full life term'.

The former is manatory sentence for murder regardless of who you killed, the circumstances or your age or how many people you killed. However the judge can recommend a 'tarrif' depending on how serious the murder was.

You would normally get a full life term if it was your second offence for Murder, you killed a child or a police officer in the course of his duty. In this case Life would mean you would die in jail.