Extract

All Christians and men of good will are called today to fight not only for the abolition of the death penalty, whether legal or illegal, and in all its forms, but also in order to improve prison conditions, with respect for the human dignity of the people deprived of their freedom. And I link this to life imprisonment. A short time ago the life sentence was removed from the Vatican’s Criminal Code. A life sentence is just a death penalty in disguise.1

1. INTRODUCTION

How is society to punish its worst offenders? For a long time this question was addressed almost exclusively by debating whether such offenders should be sentenced to death. With the widespread abolition of the capital punishment, however, the debate has shifted to the question of whether some form of life imprisonment is an appropriate punishment for such offenders. Most recently, Pope Francis added his voice to the discussion. Speaking to a delegation from the International Association of Penal Law on 23 October 2014, he condemned, publicly and without qualification, all forms of life imprisonment as an affront to human dignity.

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