Book Review: Normalizing Extreme Imprisonment: The Case of Life Without Parole in California by Marion Vannier
| Author | Louise Brangan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221112807 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Marion Vannier, Normalizing Extreme Imprisonment : The Case of Life Without Parole in California,
Oxford University Press, 2021; 212 pp.: ISBN: 9780198827825, £80.00 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Louise Brangan, University of Strathclyde, UK
Life Without Parole (LWOP) is now the popular alternative sanction to the death penalty.
It pleases the desire for severity by acting as a life-ending sentence, while also appeasing
death penalty abolitionists because LWOP is not literally a life-ending sentence. What
Vannier sets out to do in this impressive book is to remind us in the most explicit way
that LWOP is another form of death sentence, and to bring into sharper relief the
various confluence of progressive campaigns and punitive objectives that have led to
the proliferation of this most excessive penal sanction. As such, how has LWOP
become normalised within the US penal system?
The book is interested in different perceptions and attitudes of the key actors and
their struggles to make and remake their penal systems. Chapter 1 traces the history of
LWOP, and in careful empirical detail describes the legislative activities and cam-
paigning of groups that championed LWOP and that have since sought to expand
its remit. Vannier makes clear that LWOP was being used by both penal reformers
and punitive legislators to achieve their ends. Vannier is careful here in making
this point, showing the various actors that shaped LWOP and examining how the
death penalty’s continued existence —and the fractious debates about its abolition —
have imbued LWOP with the air of a sensible alternative. LWOP is thus not, as she
states ‘the result of two distinct struggles’but was the result of how death penalty abo-
lition (LWOP Saves lives) and punitive campaigns (LWOP increases penal measures)
overlapped and gave LWOP broad acceptability. This leads Vannier to the conclusion
that LWOP’s continued existence is seen by some as necessary if the death penalty is
to be abolished (p.47).
Chapter 2 discusses the anti-death penalty campaigns that have determined LWOP’s
acceptability by working to replace rather than abolish the death penalty. In this context,
LWOP is considered a humane alternative. Vannier then brings the reader inside the
courtroom in chapter 3, navigating a complex system of sentencing mechanisms and
plea bargaining. The courtroom discourse and sentencing processes reinforce that
LWOP is the lesser, merciful option. LWOP is a victory for the defence.
Theoretical Criminology
2023, Vol. 27(1) 165–180
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/13624806221112807
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