In the News: A Graying Prison Population

Council of State Governments
November/December 2006

Graying Prisoners.  (The New York Times, 8/18/2013)

Excerpt:    Owing largely to decades of tough-on-crime policies — mandatory minimum sentences, “three strikes” laws and the elimination of federal parole — these numbers are likely to increase as more and more prisoners remain incarcerated into their 70s and 80s, many until they die.

Number of Older Inmates Grows, Stressing Prisons. (The New York Times, 1/26/2012)

Excerpt: While most elderly inmates have been in prison for years, the number of older people just entering has also been increasing — along with the cost of their care. 

In Michigan, the annual cost of health care for the average inmate was $5,800, according to the study, a figure that increased to $11,000 for prisoners aged 55 to 59. The cost spiraled to $40,000 a year for inmates 80 years and older.


Why Are We Spending So Much To Lock Up Elderly Prisoners Who Pose Little Threat?   (ACLU, 6/13/2012)
 
Excerpt:    Between 1980 and 2010, the total number of people incarcerated in this country grew by 400 percent. In that same time span, the population of prisoners age 55 and older grew by nearly 1,400 percent. At the current rate of growth, the number of prisoners age 55 and older will have increased 4,400 percent from 1981 to 2030 and will make up fully a third of the nation’s prison population.

VERA Institute of Justice (April 2010)