Journey to nowhere

In 1979 the average time a "lifer" spent in prison in the UK was nine years. Now it's around 15 or 16, although minimum terms of 30 years plus are regularly handed down by the courts to those who commit the most serious offences. As a consequence, "doing life" in a British prison has never been more arduous. Nobody outside is complaining, however, although the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, did comment a while ago that the increasingly long fixed terms given to those whose crimes merit a life sentence means that we are in danger of creating a whole generation of "geriatric lifers". [...]

This was brought to the attention of the Italian public recently when more than 300 of their countrymen serving life co-signed a letter from a convicted gangster urging Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, to bring back the death penalty. The letter, written by 52-year-old Carmelo Musumeci who has been in prison for 17 years, was candid. Musumeci said he was tired of "dying a little bit every day". We want to die just once, he said, "and we are asking for our life sentence to be changed to a death sentence". [...]

For those who keep going, the struggle not to give in to despair is a tough one. And I think it is going to get worse. In 1979 there were fewer than 2,000 lifers in the system. Now there are 8,000-plus, a figure set to rise spectacularly due to the introduction of the new ISPP (indeterminate sentence for public protection). [...]

Home Office predictions suggest there will be upwards of 20,000 people in prison serving ISPPs by 2015. It should come as no surprise if, sooner rather than later, we hear words similar to those of Carmelo Musumeci and his associates coming from British prison cells.

source: Article 'Journey to nowhere' by Erwin James; www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jun/11/1; guardian.co.uk; 11 June 2007