WHEN PEOPLE KNOW HOW DEM POLICIES HARM THIER FAMALIES AND DESTROY THIER LIVES, THEY WAKE UP. The program, in essence, released killers on an “honor system” to see if they would stay out of trouble. On the average, convicts who had been sentenced to “life without parole” spent fewer than 19 years in prison. By March 1987, Dukakis had commuted the sentences of 28 first-degree murderers.