Update on LSPC's Older Prisoner Campaign

Paralleling a national trend, the number of elderly prisoners in the California prison system dramatically rose over recent years. Reasons for this increase include harsher sentencing laws and an unwillingness on the part of policy makers to release inmates approved for parole. Older prisoners require correctional systems to spend three times the amount of money than on younger prisoners largely due to higher health care costs. Studies also assert that older prisoners have an extremely low recidivism rate. Finally, older prisoners endure a unique set of challenges and abuses as they age behind prison walls. As the numbers of incarcerated seniors continue to soar, California policy makers and the general public must examine whether the continued incarceration of this population represents sound public policy.

In response to this crisis, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) initiated an Elderly Prisoner Campaign last year, focusing specifically on the plight of aging and elderly women prisoners. In collaboration with women prisoners and geriatric health professionals, LSPC surveyed hundreds of women prisoners over 55 incarcerated throughout the state. Three-quarters of women surveyed were serving either 15 years-to-life or life without possibility of parole and nearly half have been imprisoned for more than 15 years. Survey responses closely parallelled the demographics of the women’s prisons in general for this age group: 70% were white, 13% black, and 5% Latino. We are currently in the process of writing a report based on our findings which we intend to distribute to legislators, prison officials, allies in the elder rights community.

Our investigation revealed that prisons are uniquely unsafe for older people. For example, because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) lacks a retirement age policy nearly all older prisoners must work, often beyond their physical abilities. While many aging prisoner share the same challenges faced by elders in the community (such as bathing, dressing, using the bathroom, and getting in and out of bed) older prisoners must also contend with prison rules which require them to drop to the ground for alarms, climb onto top bunks, stand for multiple daily counts, and undress for strip searches. Housing issues rank among the top concerns of women prisoners surveyed who articulated problems of overcrowding, noise, lack of privacy, and intergenerational tensions. Also, older prisoners surveyed frequently described feeling unsafe and living in fear much of the time and reported a pervasive fear of abuse, both from fellow prisoners and staff. Finally, older prisoners indicated that they rely in particular ways on the support of family and friends to survive the challenges of prison life. However, this support more and more difficult to sustain over time.

Given CDCR’s failing medical system, the enormous cost to the state, extremely low recidivism rates and the violations of basic human dignity that remain part and parcel of the imprisonment of elderly persons, LSPC’s primary recommendation centers on reducing the number of older prisoners in California through a combination of early release programs like the current compassionate release law and expansion of community-based alternatives to incarceration. At the same time, we also support some short-term policy changes that may ameliorate some of the day-to-day hardships facing incarcerated seniors, but recognize these changes represent band-aids on a lethal wound. Policy makers must acknowledge that California’s current prison system and draconian tough-on-crime policies fail to create safe communities.