The Population Is Aging Everywhere – Including Prison
Over the last 30 years, the number of older people in federal prison, classed at 55 years old or older, has exploded from 3% in 1991 to 15% today.
By 2030, the Bureau of Prisons is expecting one in three inmates to be over the age of 50. Elderly inmates face challenges with using federal prison bunks, access to adequate medical care, unreliable shower temperatures, access to other facilities and special menu items.
Medical Care is often delayed or denied – and dementia care, being as involved and difficult as it is, is never thorough enough to truly provide care. Correctional officers tend to use blunt-force solutions like incarceration in the SHU as a remedy for dementia-related rule breaking, which, most would agree, simply amounts to abuse.
The Solution
The cohort of inmates over the age of 50 are less likely to re-offend than anybody. In fact, only 6% of those over 50 who have been incarcerated ever go back to prison.
Currently, crime bills floating through Congress are advocating for more prison time, not less. This is despite the fact that studies have demonstrated time and time again that longer sentences do not reduce crime.
With the current state of prison care and the aging of the average inmate, crime bills that increase sentences are tantamount to a death sentence in precarious health situations. This is not the solution to combat crime, and is absolutely a step in an immoral and dark direction.