{"id":938,"date":"2020-12-03T21:09:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T21:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=131829"},"modified":"2020-12-03T21:09:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T21:09:53","slug":"the-graying-of-mass-incarceration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/03\/the-graying-of-mass-incarceration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Graying of Mass Incarceration"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n

Mary Fish turned sixty-eight in September. She did not celebrate with her sons or grandchildren. No one sang her happy birthday; nobody baked her a cake. Instead, she spent that day as she has her previous seventeen birthdays\u2014behind bars. <\/p>\n

In 2002, Fish received two prison sentences totaling forty-eight years for assault and burglary. After entering prison, she stopped using drugs and alcohol. She\u2019s participated in self-help groups, including Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, and various prison programs. <\/p>\n

At age fifty-three, Fish began working in the prison\u2019s laundry room for $11 a month. For twelve hours a day, she pushed carts crammed with clothes and sheets, loading them in and out of the institutional washing machines and dryers. \u201cI now have two herniated discs in my back,\u201d she tells me in a letter from prison. She also enrolled in college courses, earning two associates degrees, which helped her shave some time off her sentence for good behavior.<\/p>\n

Fish, who is serving her sentence at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, Oklahoma\u2019s largest women\u2019s prison, says she has eight years of prison left to go. She\u2019s worried about catching<\/a> COVID-19. Besides her back problems, she has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Still, Fish considers herself lucky compared to other women aging around her. She does not have a terminal illness or a degenerative disease. She does not need a cane, walker, or wheelchair. But she knows her time is running out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sure don\u2019t want to die in prison,\u201d Fish wrote me. It\u2019s one of her biggest fears. <\/p>\n

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice reported<\/a> that nearly 21 percent of the nation\u2019s prison population, or almost 300,000 people, were fifty or older. Outside prison, fifty is no longer considered elderly. But incarceration, with years of bad food, little opportunity to exercise, and inadequate medical care, accelerates<\/a> the physiological aging process and often shortens life expectancy. <\/p>\n

Between 1995 and 2010, the number of prisoners aged fifty-five or older nearly quadrupled while the number of all prisoners grew by<\/a> 42 percent. At this rate, one-third of the prison population will be over<\/a> age fifty by 2030. This would mean that, in the next ten years alone, 490,000 prisoners will be age fifty or older, not including people in jails. Prisons will face an explosion of geriatric needs\u2014and the skyrocketing costs that come with it.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Oklahoma incarcerated<\/a> 5,214 people over age fifty, a steep increase from eighty-five in 1980. In 2000, California locked up<\/a> 4,900 people over age fifty-five; by 2010, that number had more than doubled<\/a> to 13,600. <\/p>\n

At the end of 2018, 30,336 California prisoners were over<\/a> age fifty, about a quarter of the state\u2019s prison population. California spends<\/a> about $138,000 annually on each incarcerated person over the age of fifty-five. In 2016, 10,140 of New York\u2019s 52,344 prisoners were fifty and older<\/a>.  <\/p>\n

A 2013 study<\/a> found that 69 percent of U.S. prisoners ages sixty-five and over had been sentenced to life in prison. Add in the 44,311 people serving<\/a> sentences of fifty years or more, or virtual life sentences, and that makes 206,268 people\u2014or one in seven prisoners\u2014who face dying behind bars. <\/p>\n

Stephanie Prost, an assistant professor at the University of Louisville who has extensively researched aging in prisons, understands how decades of tough-on-crime sentencing has led to prison wings that resemble long-term-care settings. <\/p>\n

\u201cHallways are filled with rollators and oxygen tanks,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got nursing assistants who are also incarcerated flipping people so they don\u2019t develop bed sores.\u201d <\/p>\n

And the need for these types of units will continue to rise, in some states above the one-in-seven<\/a> national average. For one study<\/a>, Prost interviewed 499 people incarcerated in Kentucky. One in four had been sentenced<\/a> to life without parole or sentences that exceeded a natural life span.<\/p>\n

\n

America\u2019s graying prison population is not the result of a crime spree by senior citizens but rather decades of national and state laws requiring decades-long, if not life, sentences with few chances of reprieve, even for those who had completely turned their lives around. <\/p>\n

The \u201clock \u2019em up and throw away the key\u201d policies of earlier years did not anticipate the challenges of caring for thousands of people who become less agile or able to navigate crowded corridors, lengthy lunch lines, and prison bunk beds\u2014let alone the more serious medical needs that frequently accompany aging. <\/p>\n

This became even more apparent when COVID-19 hit the United States\u2014with prisons quickly becoming flashpoints for the virus\u2019s spread. (As of November 13, state and federal prisons reported<\/a> 182,776 confirmed COVID cases and 1,412 deaths.) People in prison are at heightened risk of contracting\u2014and dying from\u2014this raging pandemic. <\/p>\n

Even before the arrival of COVID-19, medical care in U.S. prisons and jails has been typically inadequate, often bordering on life-threatening. It has led to dozens of lawsuits, both individual and class action. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled<\/a> that California\u2019s prison overcrowding impeded incarcerated people\u2019s right to medical care and thus violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. <\/p>\n

Still, prison health care across the nation remains deficient. <\/p>\n

\u201cPrisons aren\u2019t built to be hospitals,\u201d Prost says. Prisoners, she notes, typically acquire serious and chronic health conditions at a younger age than people who are not incarcerated. <\/p>\n

That was what happened to Robert Lind, who entered New York\u2019s prison system at age thirty-eight with no health concerns. He was given a fifty-year-to-life sentence, also known as a virtual life sentence. He remained healthy during his first three decades behind bars. <\/p>\n

But when Lind turned seventy, he began having stomach pain, his wife, Michelle, tells me in a phone interview. One night, while the couple was on a \u201ctrailer visit\u201d\u2014where family members can spend one or two days together in a trailer on prison grounds\u2014he vomited after dinner. The following morning, he vomited again. This time, the vomiting wouldn\u2019t stop. <\/p>\n

Alarmed, Michelle wanted to call for medical help. But this would have ended their visit early and Lind persuaded her to wait. Later, he collapsed and was rushed to a hospital in Albany, where he underwent surgery for H. pylori<\/a>, a stomach infection that can be caused<\/a> by contaminated food or water. <\/p>\n

While recovering in the Intensive Care Unit, Lind was shackled by his feet to the bed, a precaution that Michelle, who was allowed to visit for a brief half hour, found outrageous. \u201cMy husband couldn\u2019t even talk, he had so many tubes down his nose and mouth,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Lind was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He spent a year undergoing radiation treatment five days a week at the hospital. Again he was handcuffed and shackled during the procedure.   <\/p>\n

When the pandemic hit, Michelle worried about her husband\u2019s safety. The radiation and chemotherapy had weakened his immune system. His age made him vulnerable to the ravaging effects of COVID-19. New York prisons halted all visits, but staff continued to come in and out. Lind called his wife four times a week\u2014Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Normally reluctant to run up the phone bill, he wanted to reassure her that he was still alive. <\/p>\n

One Tuesday in May, Lind didn\u2019t call. At first, Michelle didn\u2019t worry. The prison is in a rural area and it wasn\u2019t unusual for the phones to go out. When her phone remained silent on Thursday, she called the prison and learned that her husband had been hospitalized. She was not told more. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was in terror mode,\u201d Michelle says. \u201cI know where he is\u2014but I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s alive or dead.\u201d A full week later, she learned that he had both pneumonia and COVID-19. She called every day but often could not get through. Two weeks later, Lind was returned to the prison. He must serve at least fourteen more years, before he is eligible to be considered for parole. <\/p>\n

At that point, Lind, if he\u2019s alive, will be eighty-eight.<\/p>\n

\n

The graying<\/a> of prison populations is happening not just in the United States but around the world. <\/p>\n

Across Europe, an average of nearly 12 percent<\/a> of prisoners are over fifty. In the United Kingdom, the number rose<\/a> from 7 percent in 2002 to 16 percent in 2018. In Japan, the number of prisoners aged sixty or older soared from 7 percent in 2008 to 19 percent in 2016.<\/p>\n

In Japan, which has the highest<\/a> elderly population, per capita, in the world, almost one in five<\/a> women in prison is a senior citizen. There the boom is driven not by decades of draconian sentencing but a rise in petty crimes, typically shoplifting, among elderly women, nearly half of whom live in poverty. Most are serving relatively short sentences\u2014ranging from one to three years\u2014but their chronic poverty drives up<\/a> the recidivism rate. <\/p>\n

In response, Japanese prisons have hired<\/a> specialized workers to help the elderly with bathing and using the toilet during the day; at night, these become the guards\u2019 responsibilities. Legislators are also trying to stop elder crime. In 2016, Japan\u2019s government passed a law designed to reduce recidivism among its senior citizens, adopting a plan<\/a> to help them find jobs and housing.  But recidivism among the elderly remains high.<\/p>\n

Most prison sentences in Europe are substantially shorter than those in the United States, with fewer people growing old behind bars. In Spain, for instance, less than 2 percent<\/a> of prison sentences are for more than five years. In France, a 2012 tally found<\/a> fewer than 500 prisoners (or 0.7 percent) were serving<\/a> life sentences. And in both countries, people become eligible<\/a> for parole upon reaching age seventy. Release is not automatic; inmates must successfully argue that they have earned the opportunity to spend their remaining years outside of prison.   <\/p>\n

In New York State, the Release Aging People in Prison<\/a> (RAPP) campaign has urged<\/a> lawmakers to pass the Elder Parole Act<\/a>, which would require prisoners fifty-five and older who have served at least fifteen years to get a pardon review.<\/p>\n

If the act passes, Lind, who has been imprisoned for thirty-six years, would immediately become eligible for parole. Otherwise, he must wait another fourteen years. <\/p>\n

In prison, Lind has earned his associate and bachelor\u2019s degrees. He has helped countless other inmates with their parole applications and other paperwork. \u201cHe\u2019s a completely different person\u201d than when he was arrested in 1983, Michelle says.<\/p>\n

RAPP director Jose Salda\u00f1a got to know Lind during his own thirty-eight-year incarceration<\/a>. He notes that Lind was among a small group of incarcerated men who developed the prison\u2019s Transitional Service Program, which provides reentry-related services. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe most effective therapeutic programs,\u201d Salda\u00f1a says, \u201cwere developed by and for incarcerated people. Most have languished in prisons across the state for up to three to four decades, and some even longer. They could safely return to their families and home communities.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic is far from over and continues to create a greater sense of urgency. For the most vulnerable, death is still around the corner.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Salda\u00f1a, who was released in 2018, has encouraged the Linds to join the fight for elder parole. And that\u2019s what Michelle has been doing. Before the pandemic, she and other RAPP members met with state legislators in Albany to share their stories and advocate for the bill. Now she works from home, participating in virtual press conferences and media interviews.  <\/p>\n

In Oklahoma, the law now allows<\/a> people aged sixty and older who have served at least ten years or one-third of their sentence to apply for a parole hearing. But it excludes anyone convicted of violence, including Fish, whose eight-year sentence stems from a fight over a stolen baby monitor.   <\/p>\n

California law now requires<\/a> parole hearings for incarcerated persons age fifty and over who have served at least twenty years. Commissioners are supposed to consider the person\u2019s advanced age and diminished physical condition. Prisoners who have been sentenced to death or life without parole are not eligible.<\/p>\n

Between 2014 and 2020, only 28 percent<\/a> of the 4,232 Californians granted elder parole hearings were approved.<\/p>\n

Linda Axell, an inmate at the California Institution for Women, had served thirty years in prison by 2018, when she was sixty-four, and had already been denied parole six times. The commissioners noted that she had no prior record and acknowledged that her advanced age made it unlikely that she would commit another crime. But they still denied her release and pushed her next parole hearing off for another five years. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was truly shocked, traumatized,\u201d Axell writes me from prison, noting that she had minimal disciplinary violations and has spent three decades \u201cattending all kinds of self-help, getting vocations, tutoring in education.\u201d Now she holds little hope for her next hearing: \u201cI fear denial again because the Board says I am in denial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Another way elderly prisoners can find release is through clemency. This can take two forms: a commutation, which shortens a prison sentence, or a pardon, which overturns a conviction. In many states, including California and New York, a governor can grant clemency to anyone convicted of a state crime. In Oklahoma, the pardon and parole board must first recommend<\/a> a person for commutation before the application goes to the governor. In every state, clemency is a long shot.<\/p>\n

In California, through June, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom had issued<\/a> forty-one pardons and sixty-five commutations, most during the pandemic. <\/p>\n

Even before COVID-19 struck, advocates have been pushing governors to issue clemencies to aging people in prison. But the pandemic\u2014and its rapid spread behind bars\u2014adds urgency to their demands.<\/p>\n

In New York, the RAPP campaign has organized rallies, vigils, and phone campaigns demanding that the governor step up his use of clemency. \u201cIf the risk is low, let them go\u201d is their rallying cry, reflecting that most people age out of harmful behaviors,<\/a> including criminal acts. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor some men and women, who have already languished in prison for decades, a commutation of their sentence [or the passage of the elder parole bill] is the only hope they have of not dying in prison,\u201d Salda\u00f1a says. <\/p>\n

That is where the Linds have placed their hopes. In 2016, Lind applied for commutation. He received a letter from Governor Andrew Cuomo\u2019s office notifying him that he was a candidate for pro-bono legal assistance. That was the last he heard about his application. Cuomo has granted twenty-four commutations during his three terms in office, and just three<\/a> after the pandemic hit U.S. prisons in March.  <\/p>\n

\u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic is far from over and continues to create a greater sense of urgency,\u201d Salda\u00f1a says. \u201cFor the most vulnerable, death is still around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle Lind lives every day with the fear that her husband will die in prison. \u201cWhat does he have\u2014five good years left?\u201d she asked. \u201cLet him spend that time with his children and grandchildren. Send him home.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Fish turned sixty-eight in September. She did not celebrate with her sons or grandchildren. No one sang her happy birthday; nobody baked her a cake. Instead, she\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}