What's The Point Of Calling It Life ?

[Canary42]

Quote from link "Today, Atherton was jailed for life and told he will serve a minimum of 16 years behind bars."

The guy he killed won't return after 16 years. What is the point of labelling a sentence as life when it's never served.  It's a deliberate deception to try to deceive sentencing critics - do they really think we're that daft ?

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-found-guilty-murdering-walsall-134618365.html

[tomus42]

I've never understood it. Why they don't just say he was jailed for a minimum of 16 years is baffling.

[sandyRoe]

The killer might be thinking he was unlucky he didn't get away a manslaughter charge.

[ladybirder]

I'd like to see NewJ's take on this please if he's about.

[New Judge]

What is the point of labelling a sentence as life when it's never served. 

There are currently around 70 prisoners in the UK serving "whole life" sentences. The longest serving of these is currently Robert Maudsely who was jailed for life in 1977 for murdering four people (three of whom he killed whilst serving a prison sentence for his first murder). Moors murderer Ian Brady served 51 years before dying in 2017.

[Deskdiary]

I'm a firm believer that if you take somebody's life, then your life is taken away. I don't mean the death penalty, which I've never agreed with, I mean you are jailed until you die.

I find it an absurdity that a murderer can be freed after a number of years and then have freedom for the rest of their life for purposely taking a life.

Caveat - I mean murder, not manslaughter. I'm OK with somebody convicted of manslaughter being freed. Somebody could be convicted of manslaughter for punching somebody too hard in a dust-up.

[Canary42]

OK, replace never with hardly ever.

[tomus42]

That's whole life NJ, and thank god there's a few people serving it.

The Q though is about why they call a 16 Yr or less term 'life'.

Why not call 'whole life' just 'life' and 16 years, 16 years?

[jno]

Americans would call it 20-to-40, I think, citing the minimum and maximum. I have no idea why they can't do the same here, it's simple and clear. And life would mean whole life, whcih is what it means in normal speech anyway.

[ToraToraTora]

on this subject I agree with canary, life should mean life, end of.

[Old_Geezer]

It's a daft description but we find that sorts of thing many times if we look. Point is we all know what's meant by it so there's no incentive to put it right.