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My article in the current issue examines an ongoing challenge for death-penalty opponents: abolishing the death penalty in a given state has generally meant sentencing a lot more people to life without parole, a sentence just as hopeless and final. From an ethical perspective, LWOP—which Pope Francis has called a “hidden death penalty”—isn’t much better than death row.

The death penalty is undergoing a welcome decline in the U.S. But the policy that's replacing it isn't much better.