Aging men and women are the most rapidly growing group in U.S. prisons, and prison officials are hard-pressed to provide them appropriate housing and medicare, the Human Rights Watch (HRW)said in a report released on Thursday. Because of their higher rates of illness and impairments, older prisoners incur medical costs that are three to nine times as high as those for younger prisoners.
The 104-page report, "Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States," includes new data HRW developed from a variety of federal and state sources that document dramatic increases in the number of older U.S. prisoners.
HRW found that the number of sentenced state and federal prisoners aged 65 or older grew at 94 times the rate of the overall prison population between 2007 and 2010. The number of sentenced prisoners aged 55 or older grew at six times the rate of the overall prison population between 1995 and 2010.
"Prisons were never designed to be geriatric facilities," said Jamie Fellner, senior adviser to the U.S. Program at HRW and author of the report. "Yet U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind bars."
Long sentences mean that many current prisoners will not leave prison until they become extremely old, if at all. HRW found that almost one in ten state prisoners (9.6 percent) is serving a life sentence. An additional 11.2 percent have sentences longer than 20 years.
HRW visited nine states and 20 prisons to interview prison officials, corrections and gerontology experts, and prisoners. It found officials scrambling to respond to the needs and vulnerabilities of older prisoners. They are constrained, however, by straitened budgets, prison architecture not designed for common age-related disabilities, limited medical facilities and staff, lack of planning, lack of support from elected officials, and the pressure of day-to-day operations.
The number of aging prisoners will continue to grow, HRW found, unless there are changes to harsh "tough on crime" policies, such as long mandatory minimum sentences, increasing life sentences, and reduced opportunities for parole. Many older prisoners remain incarcerated even though they are too old and infirm to threaten public safety if released, it said.
"How are justice and public safety served by the continued incarceration of men and women whose bodies and minds have been whittled away by age?" Fellner asked.
Among its recommendations, the New-York-based human rights watchdog urges state and federal officials to 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; and modify prison rules that impose unnecessary hardship on older inmates.
The number of U.S. state and federal prisoners aged 65 or over grew at 94 times the rate of the total prison population between 2007 and 2010, according to the report.
There are now 26,200 prisoners in U.S. jails aged 65 or older, says the report.
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