Lifers Almost 10% of All Prisoners

Almost 10 percent of all inmates in state and federal prisons are serving life sentences, an increase of 83 percent from 1992, according to a report released yesterday by the Sentencing Project, a prison research and advocacy group. in two states, New York and California, almost 20 percent of inmates are serving life sentences, the report found.

The increase is not the result of a growth in crime, which actually fell 35 percent from 1992 to 2002, the report pointed out. instead, it is the result of more punitive laws adopted by Congress and state legislatures as part of the movement to get tough on crime, the report said.

Four percent of those serving life sentences were convicted of drug crimes and 3.9 percent of property crimes, and a sizable number were battered women who killed their husbands after they themselves had been beaten.

Some of those serving a life sentence for the least serious crimes have been sentenced under California's "three strikes and you're out" law, the report said. The Supreme Court recently upheld the life sentence of Leandro Andrade, whose third strike, or felony conviction, was for the theft of children's videotapes worth $153 that he intended as Christmas gifts for his nieces.

In addition, the report found, there were 23,523 inmates serving a life sentence who were mentally ill and whose acts might have been caused by their illness.

The great majority of prisoners serving life sentences, now totaling 127,677, have been convicted of a violent offense, with 68.9 percent convicted of murder, the report found.

The report also found that the recidivism rate for lifers released from prison was 20 percent. Among all prison inmates, 67 percent are re-arrested within three years.

The report did not suggest why inmates serving life terms have a lower recidivism rate. But criminologists have long noted that criminals start to commit less crime as they get into their 30's or older.

Joshua Marquis, the district attorney of Clatsop County in Oregon, said that longer sentences, including more life sentences, had been a key to reducing the crime rate. "There is a reason crime in Oregon is down 40 percent in the last decade, and that is that the small population that perpetrates the majority of the most violent crimes is locked up for longer periods of time," Mr. Marquis said.