Your math is all wrong: if at a given moment in time 30% of inmates are serving life sentences, it really doesn't mean 30% of prison sentences are life sentences! Look at the population of inmates in a year ago and now, and the subset of life prisoners is probably mostly the same people (they don't get out much), while a much larger percentage of the rest of the inmate population isn't the same people.
I edited the comment and removed my confusing commentary, but I wasn't suggesting that 30% of all sentences are life sentences. I just said that if you are in prison in California, you have a 30% chance of dying there (which is in fact mathematically correct). Regardless, the numbers are off the charts vs. the rest of the world.
