the cruelty of life sentences

Here's a discursive piece on the BBC - Can society justify life-long imprisonment? You'd think the question was rhetorical: if you murder somebody, of course it's justified to put you in prison for life.

But apparently, there are people who think that whole-life tariffs are "cruel", because most convicted murderers are in prison for killing a partner or loved one, and by imprisoning people for life, you give them the idea that they've nothing to live for, and in any case, who are we to say that murderers can never be rehabilitated. Anyway, one suggestion is:

After serving a long prison term, they should be released because the relationship that caused their crime has come to an end.

But hang on - that relationship only came to an end because of the murderer murdering the other half of it. And: what on earth does it mean, to say that the relationship caused the murderer to murder? Their crime was to end the relationship by choosing to kill their partner (or "loved" one). And when I say they chose to kill, I mean it: it wasn't the fault of the relationship, nor, as is implicitly suggested by blaming this abstract thing called the relationship, was it their partner's own fault for not being less murderable - it was the fault and the responsibility of the person who killed. I'm not saying people are never provoked, or that they don't lead difficult lives in miserable relationships, but it is never a solution, it is never ever a solution, to take someone's life from them just because you feel hard done by. The comment is made in the BBC article that when the death penalty was abolished in 1969, life sentences were meant to be life. We need to regain a sense of the preciousness of human life: people who take the lives of other human beings, whether that's a policeman or a partner or a prostitute or a stranger or a series of strangers or a sick or disabled person, those people need to realise that their own life is forfeit because of it. That's not cruel: that's only fair.