Via Pew Trusts Stateline October 7, 2015
Like senior citizens outside prison walls, older inmates are more likely to experience dementia, impaired mobility, and loss of hearing and vision, among other conditions. In prisons, these ailments present special challenges and can necessitate increased staffing levels and enhanced officer training, as inmates may have difficulty complying with orders from correctional officers. They can also require structural accessibility adaptions, such as special housing and wheelchair ramps. For example, in Florida, four facilities serve relatively large populations of older inmates. These units help meet special needs, such as palliative and long-term care.
Additionally, older inmates are more susceptible than the rest of the prison population to costly chronic medical conditions. In 2011-12, for example, 73 percent of state and federal prisoners age 50 years or older reported to the Bureau of Justice Statistics that they had experienced a chronic medical condition such as hypertension, arthritis, asthma, or diabetes, among others. Younger inmates age 18 to 24 (28 percent) or 25 to 34 (41 percent) were much less likely to have reported such a condition.
All of these challenges create additional health and non-health expenses for prisons, which are constitutionally required to provide adequate medical attention and respond to the unique needs of these inmates.
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