Redemption and Life Without Parole
A female inmate serving life without parole (LWOP) since 1972 painted the cover for
Life After Life, a new book authored by Dr. Brian F. O’Neill, retired criminal justice faculty. The image shows a bridge linking a prison doorway to a community. The bridge’s building
blocks display words meaningful for an incarcerated person’s journey to redemption
such as self-awareness, mentoring, honesty, humility, skills, and family.
In Life After Life, Dr. O’Neill explores topics related to LWOP using case studies and interviews with those serving their time, some behind bars for 40 or 50 years. It details history, the Board of Pardons, juvenile LWOP, commutation, females sentenced to life in prison, victim perspectives, restorative justice, and several case studies. It is primarily centered on Pennsylvania, which leads the world in juveniles sentenced to life.
It was through teaching Inside/Out courses, in which traditional college students learn alongside the incarcerated in a prison classroom, that Dr. O’Neill established connections with “lifers,” those serving life sentences. “Lifers are a stabilizing force in prisons,” he said. “You see a fellowship among them. They help one another,” for example, in those classes.
He maintained connections with some of those individuals in his Inside/Out courses at Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County Correctional Facility and State Correctional Institution (SCI) Chester and interviewed them for his book. Life after Life explores recidivism and redemption by following some inmates who have been exceptions and have been paroled from life sentences.
Dr. O’Neill retired in 2024 after teaching at WCU for 26 years. While on the faculty, he took his students on tours of prisons, with the idea that “anyone working within the criminal justice system should see all sides of it, not just law enforcement.” In the spring 2024 semester, he organized a program that brought to campus nearly a dozen individuals whose lives in prison transformed them into agents of positive community change. The presenters — and some of the lifers in his book — demonstrate the power of redemption.
Dr. O’Neill also wrote, narrated, and produced El Padre y Los Homies, a radio documentary about Father Greg Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention program in Los Angeles, and brought Boule to campus several times.
Life After Life is available on Amazon.