&l;p&g;A New York-based prisoner advocacy organization wants to put an end to elderly Americans aging&a;mdash;and dying&a;mdash;behind bars.
A new report released this week from the &l;a href=&q;http://www.osborneny.org/&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;Osborne Association&l;/a&g; is urging action on behalf of what it has deemed &a;ldquo;America&a;rsquo;s Elder Incarceration Crisis.&a;rdquo; In&l;strong&g; &l;a href=&q;http://www.osborneny.org/resources/www-osborneny-org-aging/the-high-cost-of-low-risk/&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;&l;em&g;The High Costs of Low Risk: The Crisis of America&a;rsquo;s Aging Prison Population&l;/em&g;&l;/a&g;&l;a href=&q;http://www.osborneny.org/resources/www-osborneny-org-aging/the-high-cost-of-low-risk/&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;,&l;/a&g; &l;/strong&g;the association recommends immediate steps to stem the rapid&a;nbsp;growth of Americans aging in the nation&a;rsquo;s prisons and jails and to reduce the roadblocks older people face returning to society.
By 2030, people over 55 will make up a third of the U.S. prison population; and exploding numbers of seniors in prison and rising costs to care for them are putting the country&a;rsquo;s criminal justice system &a;ldquo;at risk of collapse,&a;rdquo; according to the report by the Osborne Association, a policy advocacy and direct-service organization dedicated to transforming the criminal justice system in New York City&a;rsquo;s jails and the state&a;rsquo;s prisons.
&l;img class=&q;dam-image getty size-large wp-image-528987796&q; src=&q;https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/dam/imageserve/528987796/960x0.jpg?fit=scale&q; data-height=&q;642&q; data-width=&q;960&q;&g; Entrance to the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center at Rikers Island, in the Bronx. This is the only prison bardge in the US, and is anchored in the South Bronx near Rikers Island. The Bardge handles inmates from medium- to maximum-security in 16 dormitories and 100 cells. (Photo by David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images)
&a;ldquo;Even as crime is at national lows and 36 states have reduced imprisonment rates, the number of older adults in prison, many of whom require specialized medical care for age-related illnesses, has only continued to grow,&a;rdquo; said &l;a href=&q;http://www.osborneny.org/about/leadership/elizabeth-gaynes/&q; target=&q;_blank&q;&g;Elizabeth Gaynes&l;/a&g;, CEO of the Osborne Association. &a;ldquo;Increasing rates of elder incarceration have reached crisis-level and put unsustainable pressure on the justice system as a whole.&a;rdquo;
&l;img class=&q;size-full wp-image-1099&q; src=&q;http://blogs-images.forbes.com/robinseatonjefferson/files/2018/05/PrisonElderIncarcerationOsborneAssocLizGaynes_official.png.jpg?width=960&q; alt=&q;&q; data-height=&q;576&q; data-width=&q;648&q;&g; Elizabeth Gaynes, President and CEO, the Osborne Association.
The crisis, she said, is exacerbated by the fact that prisons were never designed to be geriatric wards for individuals with a whole host of age-related issues&a;mdash; from arthritic knees, to difficulty bathing, to the extensive medical attention required for illnesses like strokes, emphysema, Alzheimer&a;rsquo;s and cancer. &a;ldquo;Incarcerated individuals experience a mental and physical decline at a much faster rate than people outside of prison. Research shows that 40% of incarcerated older people are diagnosed with cognitive impairment. For some, dementia becomes so pronounced that they cannot even remember why they are incarcerated in the first place.&a;rdquo;
According to the report, the past four decades have seen the most sustained and widespread imprisonment binge in recorded human history. &a;ldquo;The facts are all too familiar and are finally receiving widespread, even bipartisan, attention: The United States has roughly 5 percent of the world&a;rsquo;s population, yet is responsible for nearly 25 percent of the world&a;rsquo;s incarcerated population.&a;rdquo;
&l;img class=&q;size-large wp-image-1100&q; src=&q;http://blogs-images.forbes.com/robinseatonjefferson/files/2018/05/PrisonElderly-1200x728.jpg?width=960&q; alt=&q;&q; data-height=&q;728&q; data-width=&q;1200&q;&g; U.S. State Prison sentences for people 65-plus.
And American seniors make up a large portion of the numbers. The estimated 274,000 people aged 50 or older in U.S. state and federal prisons is greater than the entire incarcerated populations of nations like Mexico, Iran and Indonesia&a;mdash;all large countries that incarcerate at a relatively high rate. In fact, the Osborne Association asserts, if older people in state and federal prisons in the U.S. comprised their own prison system, they would be the 7&l;sup&g;th&l;/sup&g; largest prison system in the entire world.
According to the report, &a;ldquo;The aging prison population represents a national, human-made, systemic epidemic that has been decades in the making.&a;nbsp; Although there is no commonly agreed-upon age at which an incarcerated individual is &a;ldquo;old&a;rdquo;&a;mdash;definitions range from 50 to 65&a;mdash;medical practitioners and corrections professionals agree that adverse life circumstances both during and prior to incarceration lead to accelerated aging. Put simply, people who have been incarcerated very often have the physiological attributes of much older people.&a;rdquo;
Gaynes said within the United States, the states with the biggest prison populations have seen the most significant increases in the number of confined older people. &a;ldquo;We have observed this firsthand in New York State, where the Osborne Association provides direct services and programs in 27 prisons and 8 jails,&a;rdquo; she said. &a;ldquo;New York alone has 10,337 incarcerated older people.&a;rdquo;
&l;img class=&q;dam-image getty size-large wp-image-528987820&q; src=&q;https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/dam/imageserve/528987820/960x0.jpg?fit=scale&q; data-height=&q;642&q; data-width=&q;960&q;&g; View of Manhattan from the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center at Rikers Island, in the Bronx. This is the only prison bardge in the US, and is anchored in the South Bronx near Rikers Island. The Bardge handles inmates from medium- to maximum-security in 16 dormitories and 100 cells. (Photo by David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images)
New York is among five states in the union with an incarcerated older population in excess of 10,000 people, including Texas (28,502), California (27,806), Florida (21,620), and Pennsylvania (10,214), the report states. Further, in New York, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Florida and Illinois, roughly 20% of the entire prison population is comprised of older people, a rate that is only expected to rise unless states begin releasing higher rates of older people.
Gaynes said such numbers and percentages of older people are a relatively new phenomenon and a direct result of the combination of 40 years worth of extreme sentences and unforgiving release decisions and a punishment paradigm that is especially unrelenting in its response to violence.
&l;/p&g;&l;blockquote&g;According to the report, &a;ldquo;In 1973, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller proposed strict sentencing guidelines that came to be known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws. This &a;ldquo;tough-on-crime&a;rdquo; approach became a national movement, and by the 1980s the federal government and many states had adopted mandatory minimum sentencing policies, including so-called three-strikes laws. Despite the growing body of research showing that long sentences are limited in deterring future crimes and promoting public safety, the number of people serving life sentences more than quadrupled since 1984.&a;rdquo;&l;/blockquote&g;
In addition, the use of life without parole (LWOP) has increased more than 22 percent since 2008. Gaynes said since more than 31 percent of currently incarcerated people in state prison ages 65 and older are serving life sentences or death sentences, focusing on those incarcerated for non-violent crimes only will not address the crisis of those aging in prison. &a;ldquo;The increase of life sentences is inconsistent with research and science that demonstrates &a;lsquo;aging out of crime&a;rsquo; by the time people reach heir 40s,&a;rdquo; she said. &a;ldquo;It underscores the need to address our underlying emphasis on endless punishment for violent crime.&a;rdquo;
Gaynes said she realizes some will argue those incarcerated &a;ldquo;deserve what they get&a;rdquo; for their crimes and wonder why we are concerning ourselves with their welfare. Still, in addition to the astronomical costs of caring for the elderly in prison, she said victims of crime&a;mdash;even the loved ones of murder victims&a;mdash;are &a;nbsp;often more forgiving then people would think. &a;ldquo;Recidivism for older people is almost zero,&a;rdquo; she said. Many of them came in as young, violent people with terrible lives. Now they have become educated, and many are horrified by their own actions and history. If you really believe in rehabilitation, and that the point is for people to change, then at some point if those people have changed and expressed remorse and made amends, then it has to be over.&a;rdquo;
The challenges unique to older populations come at a high cost both in taxpayer dollars and in human suffering, Gaynes said. &a;ldquo;American taxpayers pay between two to five times as much to incarcerate someone 50 or older compared to a younger individual even though, after decades of incarceration, older people pose little to no risk to public safety. In fact, people over 65 have the lowest recidivism rate of any age cohort.&a;rdquo;
The Osborne Association founded the &l;a href=&q;https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinseatonjefferson/2018/05/25/re-integrating-elderly-into-society-after-years-behind-bars/#7bae8c2f48f5&q;&g;Elder Reentry Initiative (ERI)&l;/a&g; in 2015 to provide comprehensive support for aging people as they return home from New York jails and prisons.
Though the Osborne Association is New York-based, report authors say the findings have wider implications for prisons across the country. &a;ldquo;New York is our main audience because we are based here, but we have tried to take enough of a national perspective that it can help people across the United States,&a;rdquo; she said, adding that along with the corrections and justice officials in New York and its assembly, the report will be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other federal agencies that influence the prison system with the intention of informing and participating in the conversation nationally and internationally.
Over 200 people work for the 87-year-old Osborne Association from four sites in New York in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Newburgh work. They work at every point of the continuum of incarceration, from arrest and pre-entry, through jail and prison, to reentry, including families affected by crime and the criminal justice system. The Osborne Association strives for systemic reforms in prisons along with education, employment and reuniting former inmates with their families as well as rebuilding their lives after incarceration.
Osborne&a;rsquo;s report expands on earlier research and outlines changes the association believes are needed to reduce taxpayer costs and undue suffering of aging in prison and increase support for older people returning home, especially those who have been in prison for decades.
The report&a;rsquo;s recommendations include:
&l;ul&g;&l;li&g;&l;strong&g;Expand mechanisms to release older people in greater numbers.&l;/strong&g; Despite the extremely low rate of recidivism for people over 50, release rates for older incarcerated individuals remain low with existing release mechanisms gravely underutilized. By expanding the use of parole in states that already permit the practice and increasing the use of compassionate release and medical parole in both state and federal systems, the costs of incarcerating an aging prison population can be reduced without threatening public safety.&l;/li&g; &l;/ul&g;&l;ul&g;&l;li&g;&l;strong&g;Improve conditions inside prisons and jails for those aging within them&l;/strong&g;&l;strong&g;.&l;/strong&g; New policies should include training correctional staff to recognize and address age-related issues like hearing loss and cognitive decline and retrofitting prisons to make them more age-friendly.&l;/li&g; &l;li&g;&l;strong&g;Better prepare older people for re-entry from inside prison and increase supports when they come home.&l;/strong&g; Many older returning citizens are unprepared for a world that is far different from the one they left decades before&a;mdash;from navigating today&a;rsquo;s technology to finding age-appropriate housing and accessing health care for chronic conditions. Formerly incarcerated seniors should have support to address the extra obstacles they face re-entering society, including tailored discharge plans, incentivizing kin to take them in, access to public benefits and entitlements or employment, and connecting them to geriatric care.&l;/li&g; &l;li&g;&l;strong&g;Shift the nation&a;rsquo;s response to violence within the criminal justice system&l;/strong&g;&l;strong&g;.&l;/strong&g; The endless punishment model that has led to the current crisis has created a fiscal and ethical dilemma. While accounting for harm done is essential, new research cited in the report reveals that long-term incarceration is not what most survivors of crime actually want, and it wreaks havoc on the families and children of those who age in prison. Authorities should expand the range of services offered to survivors of crime and reduce our reliance on excessively long sentences as the default response to violent crimes.&l;/li&g; &l;/ul&g;
The Osborne Association was founded in the early 20&l;sup&g;th&l;/sup&g; century by prison reformer Thomas Mott Osborne. With its programs, the association tries to reduce crime and its human and economic cost, and provide opportunities for reform and rehabilitation through public education, policy advocacy and alternatives to incarceration. Osborne serves more than 13,000 currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and their children and families across multiple sites in New York City and the Hudson Valley and in more than 30 New York State prisons and New York City jails&a;mdash;Rikers Island is the city&s;s central jail complex, though there are other satellite lockups.
The Osborne Center for Justice Across Generations is the policy arm of the Osborne Association and focuses on two core areas: aging in prison, and children and families affected by incarceration. The Center develops and promotes solutions built on the principles of rehabilitation, restorative justice, reconciliation, relationships and reinvestment. It is supported by data and research grounded in decades of practitioner-based expertise within the criminal justice system as well as affected communities and knowledge of best and promising evidence-based practices across the globe.
For more information on the Osborne Association&a;rsquo;s Elder Reentry Initiative (ERI) that provides comprehensive support for aging people as they return home from New York jails and prisons, click &l;a href=&q;https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinseatonjefferson/2018/05/25/re-integrating-elderly-into-society-after-years-behind-bars/#7bae8c2f48f5&q;&g;here&l;/a&g;.
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