Families United to End LWOP (FUEL) 

FUEL’s mission is to educate our community by bringing awareness about Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP), and the cruel slow death of this sentence. We unite friends and families of LWOPs to help bring forth their stories, humanize them and give them a voice towards the eventual elimination of LWOP. Check us out at FUELWOP.org 

About Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP)

The origination of an LWOP sentence was to protect society from serial killers and those so mentally deranged that rehabilitation was physiologically impossible.

Much like California’s Three Strikes law, the initial objective of the law widened as the law manifested. LWOP has become a common sentence for crimes that, arguably are less heinous than some of those sentenced to 25 years to life, but for some technical trigger, the “special circumstance” in penal code 190.2 is applied, elevating a sentence to LWOP.

One of many problems with LWOP is that it completely prohibits a prisoner sentenced under its tentacles from being reviewed. The sentence of LWOP implies that the prisoner is incorrigible, yet any objective study on this class of prisoners will show the opposite.

LWOP is unconstitutional.
It is death by incarceration and offends human reformation.
It is Cruel and Unusual Punishment

To effectively deny and prohibit a class of people from ever opting to show rehabilitative efforts disregards every standard of decency and humanity, and grossly offends our American ideals of justice, self-determination and the potential for human reformation.  

While imprisonment may “work” at some level to reduce crime through deterrence and incapacitation, there is little evidence supporting deterrent effect of increasingly longer prison sentences.”

A 2013 ruling by European Court of Human Rights found that the penalty of life without parole in the United Kingdom violated human rights norms by not permitting the consideration of release at some point. At the time of the ruling 49 persons were serving LWOP sentences in the U.K. This contrasts with the 49,000 people serving such sentences in the U.S. (or 1,000 time as many as in the U.K.)

In a speech to the International Association of Penal Law on October 23 2014, the pope urged all “people of good will” to fight for the abolishment of the death penalty. He continued, “Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty.” Eternal sentences mean that rehabilitated men and women, who are specifically prohibited from showing they have changed every bit as much as other lifers, will not leave prison except in a cold, lifeless body bag .

Families of Life Without Parole inmates, are in constant mourning over their loved ones sentenced to die in prison without a chance of proving redemption

“According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the average cost of incarceration in 2016-2017 is about $71,000 per year for an inmate in California.” Rehabilitative inmates can be more productive as taxpayers.