Is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole cruel and unusual?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Option 3 for me.

Literally, yes.

So a man who repeatedly rapes and kills women should be allowed out of prison or a mental hospital after, say, twenty years?

If you are talking about prison only, I can respect and disagree with your logic. But do you guys oppose lifetime institutionalization of those who cannot be rehabilitated?

I made no comment on what sort of penal policies that I think are or are not suitable. I merely pointed out the obvious: that a life term without the possibility of parole is, of course, cruel; and is also - and by definition - unusual.

My apologies, I misread your comment in a tone that seemingly endorsed an opinion on policy. My mistake.

[© tweed]

Father Zossima advocated excommunication from the Church as a punishment for criminals.

Father Zosima is a fantastic character, but it's hard to make that work the way it's supposed to in an almost entirely secularized society.

you'll like this, http://ishmaelite.blogspot.com/2008/02/russian-chirst.html

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

No

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

As Antonio correctly stated there's no way you can argue that it's unusual. It's pretty obvious that it's not.

Is it cruel? Potentionally, but that depends on what you consider cruel. From some perspectives all legal penalties can be considered cruel under certain circumstances as.

Is it right? Well personally I think there should always be a chance of parole. You never know how a person might change over the years, so the door should never be entierly closed. But it's quite clear that some people need to be locked up permanently, and having a maximum number of years that a person can spend in jail is well... problematic.
We need not look longer than Norway, and their maximum penalty of 18-years inprisomet to understand why in some cases time-limited penalties just aren't enough.

Obviously such problems are solved with permanent visits to Psychiatric Institutions but you know... same thing, different name.        

[barfbag]

So how do we handle these people?

I don't know. We also need to figure out how to deal with the liberals who think it's cruel and unusual to punish people for murder? Maybe we can lock all of them up.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I find the concept of parole somewhat unusual. I don't really understand how one person would get parole and another wouldn't. I guess there's some people that cause trouble in prison and others who get along, but does that tell you much about how they'll be on the outside?  I don't know.  I appreciate that it has released some from unreasonably long sentences, but it seems to weaken the credibility of the entire system.

The life imprisonment question is complicated. The significance of the sentence may have an important deterrent role.  On the other hand, it does seem cruel to make someone spend their last days inside a prison.  But what do you do if you have an old person who commits a horrible crime?  A sentence of 30 years becomes a life sentence in this case. 

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Absolutely not!

[Miles]

Its less cruel and unusual than the death penalty.

[minionofmidas]

Father Zossima advocated excommunication from the Church as a punishment for criminals.

Father Zosima is a fantastic character, but it's hard to make that work the way it's supposed to in an almost entirely secularized society.

We force criminals to join a church?

[politicallefty]

No. In the legal sense of the Eighth Amendment, there is no violation of the Constitution by this sentence. I absolutely support this penalty for the worst of the worst, namely in terms of murder. There are those that have committed crimes so heinous as to warrant their permanent removal from free society. I have a serious problem with laws that allow a 21-year sentence to be handed down for the murder of 77.

On another point, I can't ever see the US fully abolishing the death penalty without life imprisonment without parole as the maximum punishment. The only exception would be with minors. As I believe life without parole should be the maximum penalty by law, I do not think it should be applied to minors. Whether or not parole is eventually granted or not, it should be available to minors sentenced to life imprisonment.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I'm stating to be more and more supportive of the Norwegian model, where the maximum punishment is 21 years in prison but the period can be extended if the inmate still poses a threat to society (therefore, Breivik almost certainly will never leave the prison), as simply there are people beyond rehabilitation and those, for whom the institutionalization won't work.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No. In the legal sense of the Eighth Amendment, there is no violation of the Constitution by this sentence. I absolutely support this penalty for the worst of the worst, namely in terms of murder. There are those that have committed crimes so heinous as to warrant their permanent removal from free society. I have a serious problem with laws that allow a 21-year sentence to be handed down for the murder of 77.

On another point, I can't ever see the US fully abolishing the death penalty without life imprisonment without parole as the maximum punishment. The only exception would be with minors. As I believe life without parole should be the maximum penalty by law, I do not think it should be applied to minors. Whether or not parole is eventually granted or not, it should be available to minors sentenced to life imprisonment.

Actually neither exists in Alaska, where the maximum penalty is life with the possibility of parole after something like 20 years. It's the only state where life without parole is not a possible sentencing option. Also considering that Ariel Castro received a 1000 year sentence, he's a pretty bad example considering it's obvious he was never getting out regardless of if the sentence was actually life or not.

I think abolishing life without parole wouldn't be as badly taken if it was more widely understood that "eligible for parole" does not mean "will be paroled" or even "is likely to receive parole". Charles Manson has been eligible for parole for quite awhile, but it's pretty obvious he's never getting out.

[Nhoj]

Nothing unusual about it.

[afleitch]

Yes.

[minionofmidas]

imprisonment itself is cruel and unusual.

life itself is often cruel and unusual.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

No, of course not.  Neither is the death penalty, since the Founding Fathers never seemed to think of it that way.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm of the opinion the when it comes to the Eighth Amendment, SCOTUS has completely misread the intention of the constitutional phrase "cruel and unusual".  It was not intended as a bar against the legislature deciding that any particular sentence was appropriate.  What it was intended as was as a restriction upon the judiciary arbitrarily imposing punishments without relation to the severity of the crime.  At most it acts as a brake upon legislative power only if the legislative branch fails to establish the means to avoid arbitrary imposition of punishments, as could be rightly said of the death penalty system in this country when the Furman v. Georgia ruling was handed down. But in striking down punishments purely because they are "cruel", SCOTUS is overreaching into the legislative domain.

All punishments, no matter how mild, can be said to be cruel. Indeed, if they were not cruel, would they truly be punishing? The question of whether a particular punishment is too cruel for a particular crime is a subjective one and thus something for a legislature to decide.