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It is wonderful to see that we have at least one county prosecutor in Michigan who is joining the growing movement across the country to abolish Life Without Parole. Ms. Siemon is not alone--in fact, the U.S. is the ONLY country in the world that actually keeps people in prison until they die if they have a LWOP sentence; likewise it is the only country in the world that sentences juveniles to life without parole, a practice that was banned in part by U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Miller v. Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016). In Pennsylvania, a movement is ongoing to end what advocates call "Death by Incarceration." Other countries allow parole board review of life sentences at reasonable intervals and release prisoners who show evidence of rehabilitation. The cruel and inhumane practice of Death by Incarceration means that in Michigan we have hundreds of elderly prisoners with the ailments that accompany age, especially age while serving decades behind bars, which shortens their lives considerably due to brutal conditions. And of course, LWOP is disproportionately meted out to people of color, as the chart in this story shows, just as the majority of prisoners on death row in the U.S. are Black or others of color. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world's population but 25% of its incarcerated population! See http://voiceofdetroit.net/2019/01/09/the-meaning-of-life-the-case-for-abolishing-life-sentences/.