First of all, my belief is--and this is from somebody who was convicted and who served a life sentence, and continues to serve a life sentence--my sentence is going to be forever.
If the risk is such that the person shouldn't be reintegrated into the community, they stay in prison. And there are many men and women who are never going to get out. They're going to die in prison. I've worked with at least 16 people who have died from natural causes while serving their life sentences.
But the longer you keep people in, the harder it is to reintegrate them into the community. One of the things I studied when I was working on my thesis and I've witnessed in my work is that young offenders who come in and are sentenced to a life sentence and have a seven-year minimum are not getting out in seven years. Many of them are staying in 10, 15, or 20 years. And it's harder to reintegrate them into the community because their mental age and their experience in the community are the same when they go back out as they were when they came in. Their development is blunted.
I took a guy out on a pass just the other day. He is serving for second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 12 years. He's been in for 23 years. The problem was, he couldn't get into programs. They just weren't available, so he was in a lot longer than was necessary. He'd never seen a cellphone before. He had never seen some of the new money that is out. So trying to help him reintegrate into the community is a challenge. The longer you keep people in, the harder it is to reintegrate them.
I'm not saying that you just automatically open a door and let somebody out because they've served this number of years or that number of years. When a person is ready to start reintegrating, that's when you have to do it. And it's a long, slow process.