Prisons as old age homes

Planning? Prisons aren't for planning!

David Crary wrote for AP today,

In corrections systems nationwide, officials are grappling with decisions about geriatric units, hospices and medical parole as elderly inmates - with their high rates of illness and infirmity - make up an ever increasing share of the prison population.

At a time of tight state budgets, it's a trend posing difficult dilemmas for policymakers. They must address soaring medical costs for these older inmates and ponder whether some can be safely released before their sentences expire.

The latest available figures from 2010 show that 8 percent of the prison population — 124,400 inmates — was 55 or older, compared to 3 percent in 1995, according to a report being released Friday by Human Rights Watch. This oldest segment grew at six times the rate of the overall prison population between 1995 and 2010, the report says.

"Prisons were never designed to be geriatric facilities," said Jamie Fellner, a Human Rights Watch special adviser who wrote the report. "Yet U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind bars."

No, they were designed to be profit centers for prison profiteers.

Look at this sob story:

Under a Supreme Court ruling, inmates are guaranteed decent medical care, but they lack their own insurance and states must pay the full cost. In Georgia, according to Fellner's report, inmates 65 and older had an average yearly medical cost of $8,565, compared with $961 for those under 65.

Georgia should have thought of that before locking up so many people.

So what will they do with the older prisoners if they release them? Maybe they'll be old enough for Medicaid; that's their best bet. Or not:

"Nursing homes don't want former felons," she said. "Some states are looking at starting long-term care facilities outside prison for that could take care of parolees."

I'll bet the state of Georgia, which is busy emptying its mental hospitals, won't bother with that. But the state should do something for these people, since the state has created this situation by putting more adults in jail, prison, probation, and parole than any other state.

The state of Georgia wants to make the problem worse by privatize the prisons that are already mostly populated by collateral damage from the drug war, providing more profits to select private industry at the expense of the prisoners and of you, the taxpayers. We don't need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead. Follow this link to petition the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.

-jsq