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life imprisonment
Sign in to saveAlso known as lifelong incarceration, life sentence, life incarceration, life in prison
imprisonment intended to last for life
Life imprisonment is a criminal sentence where a person is locked in prison for the rest of their life, rather than being released after a set number of years. It matters because it represents one of the harshest punishments a justice system can impose, and decisions about when and how it's used raise important questions about fairness, rehabilitation, and the purpose of incarceration.
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Encyclopedic overview
Life imprisonment (or life sentence) is any sentence of imprisonment in which the convicted individual will remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term), with or without the possibility of release. Crimes that are punishable by life imprisonment are considered extremely serious and usually violent. Examples of these crimes are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, illegal drug trade, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated property damage, arson, hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Law passes
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “life imprisonment” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.