Overview

A critical, theoretical, and empirical examination of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP) is long overdue. This book presents a unique case study of the 'normalization' of LWOP. More specifically, it explores the ties between LWOP's normalization and death penalty abolitionism, using California as a case study. Drawing on rich empirical research, it brings together relevant literature in criminology, the sociology of punishment, social policy, and sentencing to provide insights into the nature of American penal politics, the role of progressive pressure groups, and the relationship between life imprisonment and capital punishment. This study investigates the extent to which members of civil society who challenge capital punishment (lawyers, non-profit organizations, and lobbyists) have helped normalize LWOP by fostering the belief that it is humane and merciful. The monograph focuses on three domains where anti-death penalty activists have lobbied, campaigned, pled for, and agreed to LWOP; Congress, the political sphere, and courtrooms. For each domain, the book teases out the motivations of the main actors and agencies involved. It analyses the constraints under which they considered themselves to be operating, and the relationship between these motivations and the broad social, legal, and political environment in which they unfolded. Particular attention is paid to actors' understandings of the concepts of 'life' and 'death' in punishment. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

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9780198827825

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As scholars of life imprisonment ourselves, it is a great pleasure to commend Marion Vannier's book as a fine contribution to the burgeoning field of life imprisonment studies. It should be widely read, not only by students and specialists in the field, but also by anyone who cares about the type of ultimate penalties we impose on the most serious offenders. Significantly, this book should serve as a warning to death penalty abolitionists who can no longer ignore the ultimate implications of the most severe type of life imprisonment. * Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton, University of Nottingham, from the Foreword to Normalizing Extreme Imprisonment *

Author Information

Marion Vannier is a lecturer in criminology and criminal justice at the University of Manchester and a Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. She has previously worked as a lawyer in private law firms, as a legal officer in a defence team before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and as a judge for the UNHCR within the French Asylum appeals court. She completed her PhD at the University of Oxford and also holds a joint law degree from the Universities of La Sorbonne and King's College London, and an LLM from Georgetown University (US).

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