From CURE National comes the news that Human Rights Watch has issued a new report, Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States, which examines the graying of America’s prisoners and discusses why the country’s correctional facilities are ill-equipped to handle the rise of older prisoners.
Cure National offers some highlights of the report, which can be read in its entirety by clicking on the link below.
The number of US state and federal prisoners age 65 or over grew at 94 times the rate of the total prison population between 2007 and 2010.
The number of prisoners age 65 or older increased by 63 percent. The total prison population increased by 0.7 percent. There are now 26,200 prisoners age 65 or older.
The number of US state and federal prisoners age 55 or older nearly quadrupled between 1995 and 2010, growing by 282 percent, while total number of prisoners grew by less than half, 42 percent. There are now 124,400 prisoners age 55 or older.
As of 2010, 8 percent of the prisoner population was 55 or older, compared with 3 percent in 1995. The proportion of prisoners age 55 and over varied among individual states from 4.2 percent in Connecticut to 9.9 percent in Oregon.
Fourteen percent of federal prisoners are age 51 or older.
Lengthy Sentences Propel Aging Prisoner Population:
Of state prisoners age 51 or older, 40.6 percent have sentences ranging anywhere between more than 20 years to life.
One in ten state prisoners is serving a life sentence.
Fifteen percent of state prisoners age 61 or older have been in prison more than 20 years. In New York, 28 percent of those age 60 or over have been in prison continuously for 20 or more years.
Eleven percent of federal prisoners age 51 or older are serving sentences ranging from 30 years to life. There is no federal parole.
Medical care for elderly prisoners is more costly:
Depending on the state, medical expenditures for older prisoners are three to nine times as high as for other prisoners.
Florida, the 16 percent of the prison population age 50 or over accounts for 40.1 percent of all episodes of medical care and 47.9 percent of all hospital days.
In Georgia, incarcerated people age 65 years or older had an average yearly medical cost of $8,565, compared with the average of $961 for those under 65.
In Michigan, the average annual health care cost for a prison inmate has been estimated at $5,801; the cost increases with their age, from $11,000 for those age 55-59 to $40,000 for those age 80 or older.
The report concludes that prisons are built, and run, with younger prisoners in mind. According to CURE, “Walking a long distance to the dining hall, climbing up to a top bunk, or standing for count can be virtually impossible for some older prisoners. Incontinence and dementia impose their own burdens. In the prisons with high proportions of elderly prisoners visited for the report, Human Rights Watch found that staff behavior has had to adapt to the realities of aging bodies and minds.”
Human Rights Watch offers several recommendations
Review sentencing and release policies to determine which could be modified to reduce the growing population of older prisoners without risking public safety
Develop comprehensive plans for housing, medical care, and programs for the current and projected populations of older prisoners
Modify prison rules that impose unnecessary hardship on older inmates
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