An article in today’s New
York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-dementia-among-aging-criminals.html?hp)
on dementia in older prisoners underscores the foolishness of housing so many
older inmates in the nation’s prisons. Some 70,000 state and federal prisoners,
equal to about 5% of all prisoners, are age 55 or older. This number is about
11 times higher than the number at the beginning of the 1980s, thanks to the the
rising number of prisoners in general, the use of “three-strikes” laws and
other measures mandating long sentences, and the decreased use of parole. Yet
the increased number of older prisoners is costing much money without keeping
the public any safer.
Older prisoners are much
more likely than younger prisoners to have significant physical and/or mental
health problems. Because of older prisoners’ health care needs, their
incarceration costs the state and federal governments much more on average than
does the incarceration of younger prisoners: more than $70,000 annually for an
older prisoner compared to about half that for a younger prisoner. The cost of
housing older prisoners thus amounts to about $5 billion annually. Ironically,
many and perhaps most of these older prisoners have reached the age where they
are only a minimal threat to public safety and perhaps no threat at all. Without
endagnering public safety, older inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses could
be released, and nonprison alternatives could be found for other older inmates
with significant physical and/or mental health problems. These measures would save
tens of millions of dollars annually that could be put to much better use than
keeping these frail inmates behind bars.
