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OVER THE PAST 45 YEARS, LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT THE Possibility of parole (often referred to as life without parole or by the acronym LWOP) has emerged as a regular feature [...]

Corrections officials, prison staff and many people incarcerated have long believed that hope derived from a realistic possibility of release is essential to maintain order and safety in the prison. Criminological research consistently finds, however, that people without foreseeable or realistic prospects for release nevertheless do hope. Yet while findings of hope in criminological literature are robust, they remain undeveloped. This article draws from hope studies in other disciplines to advance a model of types of hope, which is then used to analyse evidence of hope in prior criminological literature on life sentences and long prison terms. The article distinguishes hopes derived from legal opportunities and escapist fantasies from deeper hopes grounded in despair, highlighting hope as a site for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question has been posed whether current developments in American penal policy toward reducing prison populations and sentences for low level, nonviolent offenses might reflect the end of the mass incarceration era. Yet articulation of precisely what defines the present in American penal policy remains unclear. This paper identifies three distinctive features: a national-level program of comprehensive criminal justice reevaluation and reform in response to the excesses of recent policy; the distinguishing of groups for distinct treatments as a central principle and product of the reform program; and the fusion of previously distinct political and administrative logics that undergird the reform process. Rather than a full turn away from mass incarceration or an ambivalent mix of old and new, contemporary penal policy is better characterized as a bifurcation, responding uniquely, with new answers and new omissions, to the dilemmas and constraints of “late mass incarceration.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]