Dirk van Zyl Smit

Life imprisonment has replaced capital punishment as the most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide. As a consequence, it has become the leading issue in international criminal justice reform. In the first global survey of prisoners serving life terms, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton argue for a human rights–based reappraisal of this exceptionally harsh punishment. The authors estimate that nearly half a million people face life behind bars, and the number is growing as jurisdictions both abolish death sentences and impose life sentences more freely for crimes that would never have attracted capital punishment. Life Imprisonment explores this trend through systematic data collection and legal analysis, persuasively illustrated by detailed maps, charts, tables, and comprehensive statistical appendices. The central question—can life sentences be just?—is straightforward, but the answer is complicated by the vast range of penal practices that fall under the umbrella of life imprisonment. Van Zyl Smit and Appleton contend that life imprisonment without possibility of parole can never be just. While they have some sympathy for the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, they conclude that life imprisonment, in many of the ways it is implemented worldwide, infringes on the requirements of justice. They also examine the outliers—states that have no life imprisonment—to highlight the possibility of abolishing life sentences entirely. Life Imprisonment is an incomparable resource for lawyers, lawmakers, criminologists, policy scholars, and penal-reform advocates concerned with balancing justice and public safety.

In recent years European prison law and policy have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. This book explores its development and analyses the penological and human rights foundations on which it is based. It examines the findings of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the recommendations of the Council of Europe, and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. From these sources it makes the general principles that underlie European prison law and policy explicit, emphasising the principle of using imprisonment as a last resort and the recognition of prisoners' rights. The book then moves on to apply these principles to conditions of imprisonment, regimes in prison, contacts between prisoners and the outside world, and the maintenance of good order in prisons. The final chapter of the book considers how European prison law and policy could best be advanced in future. The authors argue that the European Court of Human Rights should adopt a more proactive approach to ensuring that imprisonment is used only as a last resort, and that a more radical interpretation of the existing provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights will allow it to do so. It concludes that the growing cooperation on prison matters within Europe bodes well for the increased recognition of prisoners' rights across Europe. In spite of some countervailing voices, Europe should increasingly be able to give an international lead in a human rights approach to prison law and policy in the same way it has done with the abolition of the death penalty.

In recent years European prison law and policy have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. This book explores its development and analyses the penological and human rights foundations on which it is based. It examines the findings of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the recommendations of the Council of Europe, and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. From these sources it makes the general principles that underlie European prison law and policy explicit, emphasising the principle of using imprisonment as a last resort and the recognition of prisoners' rights. The book then moves on to apply these principles to conditions of imprisonment, regimes in prison, contacts between prisoners and the outside world, and the maintenance of good order in prisons. The final chapter of the book considers how European prison law and policy could best be advanced in future. The authors argue that the European Court of Human Rights should adopt a more proactive approach to ensuring that imprisonment is used only as a last resort, and that a more radical interpretation of the existing provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights will allow it to do so. It concludes that the growing cooperation on prison matters within Europe bodes well for the increased recognition of prisoners' rights across Europe. In spite of some countervailing voices, Europe should increasingly be able to give an international lead in a human rights approach to prison law and policy in the same way it has done with the abolition of the death penalty.