According to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2020, 1 in 66 adult U.S. residents, some 3,890,400 people, were on either parole or probation, two forms of community supervision. In 2020, the total parole population amounted to about 862,100 people. In the same year, "The Sentencing Project produced a 50-state survey of departments of corrections that revealed that more than 55,000 Americans are incarcerated in state and federal prisons with no chance of parole, reflecting a 66% rise in people serving LWOP since 2003." One in four are over 60, while 47% are over 50. Pennsylvania has the higher per capita rate of people incarcerated for life without parole, with over five-thousand persons. No Way Home is a soon to be released documentary presented by the Amistad Law Project about life without parole in Pennsylvania.
"No Way Home traces the story of Lorraine Haw, known as Mrs. Dee Dee, as she grapples with the trauma of living on both sides of the epidemic of gun violence in Philadelphia. Earlier in life, Mrs. Dee Dee's younger brother was shot to death in his apartment complex after an argument over a gold necklace turned fatal. Years later, still reeling from the tragic death of her brother, she was devastated to see her son sentenced to mandatory life without parole in prison. A leader in the movement to end mass incarceration in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Dee Dee's story reflects the experiences of thousands of people in Pennsylvania who simultaneously sit on both sides of the gun violence epidemic: having lost loved ones to gun violence and also having lost loved ones to the carceral system."
Click here for the trailer.
Centering their work in Pennsylvania, The Amistad Law Project was "Founded in October 2014…and works to abolish death by incarceration and longterm sentences, create alternatives to policing and get our communities the material resources and political power they need to thrive. We are an organization founded by Black feminists that believes in building powerful multi-racial alliances against systemic oppression. There are a very small number of people at the top who reap the benefits of this system, but there are many of us."
