The question as to whether whole life sentences with no possibility of parole are morally superior to The Death Penalty is relatively new but of the utmost importance. For most of human history, almost all punishments for crimes didn’t involve prison but instead mutilation and/or death, especially the sort of crimes that we now give out whole life sentences for; however now that The Death Penalty has been abolished in the UK, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (which should be assumed as what I’m talking about when I refer to whole life sentences from now on) is the harshest sentence we can give. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland the whole life sentence is a specific punishment while in Scotland the judge can effectively hand out a whole life sentence due to the option of an indefinite prison sentence where parole is set outside of the criminal’s probable life; however, in all British legal systems, a whole life sentence can only be handed out when the crime(s) committed is particularly horrifying, mostly involving the murder of a particularly terrible sort. People being sentenced to life in prison is very common across the rest of the world as well, with most countries having such a punishment within their laws. The primary reason the UK and many other nations have abolished The Death Penalty is because of moral concerns and the fact that whole-life sentences can act as an alternative; however the moral superiority of whole-life sentences isn’t self-evident and since its the most extreme punishment our government can give people now it's very important to discuss whether its better or not, which I will do in this essay.
The most common argument for whole-life sentences is that they’re like The Death Penalty in many good ways but lack the risk involved with killing someone. This is primarily argued in the sense that the criminal is no longer a threat to the public, however, they also don’t have to be killed; sparing the government from having to kill someone and eliminating the possibility of a wrongful conviction ending with an innocent being killed. This means that the government isn’t required to have the power to kill someone who’s not an active threat like with The Death Penalty (decreasing the chances of tyranny) and that the complicated moral and legal situation where a court has killed an innocent never has to reappear. This argument could be countered by referencing the fact that even if they haven’t been killed, the wrongfully convicted person could still spend much of their life in prison due to the court, which means the innocent would still be facing a terrible punishment. While it is true that wrongful convictions can’t be avoided unless how much evidence is required to convict someone changes, death is still an infinitely worse punishment than whole life imprisonment; since unlike lost time, death can never be made up for. It’s for this reason that I agree with this argument if we are to presuppose that some people are beyond redemption like whole life sentences and The Death Penalty does.
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The most common argument against whole-life sentences is that they do not offer a chance at redemption, making them essentially longer and arguably crueler versions of The Death Penalty; which raises the question of whether people should just use The Death Penalty instead. This is a view often held by the religious, since most religions (for example Buddhism and Judaism) largely judge a person based upon the morality of their actions instead of a change in mindset, so from such a perspective the lack of agency prisoner’s have in prison greatly reduces their capacity to do good. This argument is often used by both those who desire more punitive justice along those who desire more rehabilitative justice since they both usually see whole life sentences as very similar to the death penalty; meaning they think you might as well go with either The Death Penalty or a lesser sentence. Those serving sentences that offer them no chance at freedom can indeed change their ways and do good from within prison-like Stanley Williams (a Crips founding member who whiles in prison on death row renounced his gang membership and spent much of his time warning people across the globe of the dangers of gangs), however, they have much more opportunity to do good with their freedom, an argument many made to try and get Williams released before he was executed. For this reason (though I think it’s an exaggeration to say that prisoners have no chance to redeem themselves behind bars), it’s perfectly valid to say that whole life sentences greatly limit the criminal’s chances at redemption, especially from a religious perspective. This is why I’m generally supportive of the argument that whole life sentences are quite similar to capital punishment, leading most of its victims to end up essentially dead, even if technically alive.
A second argument in favor of whole life sentences is that they are severe enough to match the crimes and therefore act as an effective deterrent, yet unlike The Death Penalty allow the prisoner to understand what they’ve done. This argument is a mix of practicality and sentimentality since while life imprisonment is indeed close to The Death Penalty when it comes to deterrent effect with how it deeply affects the criminal’s life, the practical effect of the criminal understanding the gravity of their actions is minimal when they’ll never actually get freedom. Nonetheless, the idea that a criminal could be executed without respecting the gravity of their actions disturbs many people. For example, you have Arthur Hutchison, who in the year 1983 at the age of 42 broke into an elderly couple’s home and killed them along with their son, before raping their 18-year-old daughter; all of which happened on the same day that their other daughter’s wedding reception took place, in that very home. Such horrific crimes’ inconceivable weight is clear to us, however, it wasn’t to Arthur himself and the idea that he could die not feeling the weight of his crimes is troublesome to many people. Most people who are given either whole life sentences or used to be given The Death Penalty commit crimes at a similar level so, understandably, many people would not want to grant them death, instead leaving them to think about their actions. I understand why people would want these criminals to know the gravity of what they’ve done, however, this is too unlikely for me to hedge my bets on. While many (and perhaps even most) people who are given whole life sentences come to understand what they’ve done, not all will; so for them, the sentence is simply an escape from execution. Then also you get people who are warped by their sentences like Robbert Maudsley, who got a whole life sentence for murdering a child rapist in 1974 before going on to murder 3 more people in prison, likely because there was little else that could be done to him now that he had lost his freedom permanently. Because of the unreliability of prisoners having this revelation and the possibility of a whole life sentence making the sentenced fearless I don’t think this argument holds up, people simply are too unpredictable to be forced into experiencing certain things.
To turn towards the views of particular groups on The Death Penalty and whole life sentences we can look at those of Humanists. The non-theistic philosophy of Humanism is based upon the idea that what drives humanity is human agency and the choices that individual humans make, not believing in anything supernatural like an afterlife. Humanists are almost exclusively against The Death Penalty because their philosophy dictates that all people have inherent value as they only ever exist in this world, so killing them doesn’t respect that value; however, the Humanist community doesn’t have as clear a stance on whole life sentences. This article from a Humanist website called TheHumanist makes an argument against whole life sentences, its core argument being summed up in this part which says:
“Humanists emphasize living in this world instead of preparing for a supposed afterlife. But with that recognition must come the understanding that life sentences without parole are inherently unethical”
As mentioned in the article itself, this opposition to life imprisonment is very similar to that of Humanist opposition to capital punishment since in both scenarios the criminal will never be able to exercise their full agency again. This is akin to the previously mentioned argument against life sentences that they don’t offer a chance at redemption, however, it’s different in that this Humanist argument (which seems very consistent with Humanist beliefs) sees human action through an agency as the only source of good in the world, making it the most important part of the criminals’ existences. I feel that to value the inherent humanness within everyone so highly without some supernatural justification is questionable, however, I still understand the concern. I’d agree that in most situations if someone’s freedom is being heavily restricted like it is in prison they have lost much of what it means to be alive, making the outcome for those who never have their sentences altered often similar to that of The Death Penalty.
The other group whose views on the matter of life imprisonment and The Death Penalty will I look at here is an organization, that is The Catholic Church. While the views of The Church have changed a lot over the years and many within it disagree with one another I shall go with The Church's official stance, since said stance is set by The Pope and by the organization’s own rules he is the only one who can truly interpret God’s teachings. Like his predecessors, Pope Francis has taken a stand against The Death Penalty due to the Christian view that all people have a divine spark, making it possible for all to be redeemed; however, his opposition to whole-life sentences is shown in the following quote from the Catholic Citizen website is more unique to himself;
“I link this to life imprisonment. A short time ago the life sentence was taken out of the Vatican’s Criminal Code. A life sentence is just a death penalty in disguise.”
His opinion (and therefore the opinion of Catholicism) is surprisingly similar to that of the aforementioned (quite typical) Humanist, despite the many differences in their core beliefs. A belief that their ideologies do share in common is that they inherently value people and believe that they all deserve some level of respect, even if they believe this for different reasons. So while they do understand that in some circumstances people must be stopped permanently for the safety of others, this should be avoided at all costs; meaning that in the modern day because of the technology we have, etc. capital punishment and life imprisonment are unnecessary. It seems to me that almost all beliefs that place indestructible value on the individual oppose the use of both The Death Penalty and whole life sentences unless they are necessary to protect people, which most think they never are in the modern world. As someone with Utilitarian leanings, I think that there are still quite a lot of reasonably likely scenarios in the modern world where someone who isn’t an active threat would have to be at least given a whole life sentence, so I’m not convinced of the idea that they have no application in the UK. Nevertheless, I do think that all people can be redeemed and that you should never be cruel to anyone, even those who are monstrous, so I do think that whole life sentences and The Death penalty both have a similar base level of immorality.
In conclusion, from what I’ve seen and considered, whole life sentences that disclude the possibility of parole and The Death Penalty are morally almost identical; however whole life sentences just barely prove to be more ethically sound, so I would say they are indeed the morally superior of the two. I think whole life sentences ignore the inherent value of human beings in the same way that The Death Penalty does, something which Humanist and Catholic views imply. I also think that whole-life sentences can’t be trusted to punish criminals in any particular way because of how much variance there is in how people react to whole-life sentences and that they greatly limit a criminal's chances of reformation, along with any good they could do. Despite all of this, I stand by my answer that whole-life sentences are better than capital punishment because, with whole-life sentences, there is still hope. People stuck in prison may often (though not always) in some way end up dead, but not literally: if they don’t die behind bars they could be metaphorically brought back to life through freedom. Even if they were sentenced to life imprisonment there is still hope that there could be a change in law or something else to the same effect, meanwhile, if someone has truly been killed, there is no coming back. While I’ve concluded that it’s certainly not unreasonable to be against both whole life sentences without any chance of parole and The Death Penalty, I can still confidently say that when compared to The Death Penalty, whole life sentences are the morally superior option.
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