James W. Marquart is a Professor of Practice in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the Texas Christian University. He has authored over sixty refereed articles and eight books on matters relating to crime and criminal justice. As a result of his research on capital punishment, he has testified in over thirty capital murder trials. Joshua S. Long is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell where he teaches classes on victimology and the corrections system. He conducts research on adverse childhood experiences and prison violence. He is the author of Avenging Child Sex Abuse: Vigilante Violence in Prisons and the Community (2024) and Prison Homicide: Killing and Dying in Prison Today (2025).

'The authors of this powerful book have extensive experience interviewing life-sentenced prisoners across the United States. They unflinchingly examine the overlapping controversies of the death penalty, life imprisonment without parole, and medically-assisted dying, showing how new tactics of 'extreme punishment resulting in death' have silently surged. They boldly expose the moral and financial 'train wreck' that is coming.' Alison Liebling, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Cambridge

• Preface; 1. If death is different, what about life imprisonment?; 2. International use of MAID; 3. MAID in the USA: legal precedent and public opinion; 4. Two hundred thousand life sentences; 5. LWOP in five states; 6. Living and dying in prison; 7. Assessing arguments for and against MAID in prison; 8. The ken of the courts; 9. Two trains going downhill towards each other; Appendix.