This probably doesn’t count as an exposé because, well, no one tries to hide it. But the story in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is nevertheless shocking and appalling. The Journal reports that the “fastest-growing population in federal and state prisons are those 55 and older,” and the cost of all that health care (not to mention the food and jumpsuits) is killing local budgets.
The typical old jailbird isn’t a lunatic who killed someone in the 50s and has been locked up since. Their offenses are often drug-related and they were committed over the past few decades. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, is about to release a study showing that “the number of state and federal prisoners 55 or over nearly quadrupled to 124,400 between 1995 and 2010, while the prison population as a whole grew by only 42%,” according to the Journal.
Our first reaction is: someone figured out how to get free treatment for diabetes. Our second reaction is: this is what you get when a society’s too frequent response to crime is to lock ’em up and throw away the key.
There’s another response, though–one that’s better for these ancient inmates (most of whom long ago aged out of street hustling, cat burgling and daring shoot-outs) and a financial win for the taxpayers who pick up the tab for these elder-jails. Namely: let the old birds fly. Set a retirement age for prisoners.
(We would like to claim this inspired opinion as our own, but the credit goes to Hamilton Nolan, writing at Gawker.com. His rant, “Let’s Let All the Old People Out of Jail,” is concise and, like most Gawker pieces, very readable.)
It isn’t clear that the overall cost of health care will be reduced significantly. It might even go up. These are old dudes, and they aren’t likely to find a job with an excellent benefits package. So their care will probably be covered by Medicare or Medicaid. They’ll be treated by people who get paid according to the amount of care they administer, which is (we assume) not the business model followed in prison clinics, which probably means a net increase in care and cost.
But there will still be benefits. Taxpayers will be saving money on prison guards, and prison construction, and prison maintenance. And these old guys will be back in the world, where they might not be highly productive citizens but where they aren’t going to hurt anyone, either.
Photo of German Gen. V. Moltke, via the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress)
