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Is Locking Up Elderly Inmates An Unnecessary Public Expense?
I thought that this article was super interesting because it substantiates an argument that I have had with opponents of the death penalty. At one time, it used to cost the state more to execute an inmate than it took to house them for life. However, since offenders are receiving longer sentences, the criminal justice system now has to start making preparations to deal with progressive diseases such as Alzheimer’s, advanced issues pertaining to diabetes, cardiac issues, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, just to name a few. Some states are even having to create institutions that are very similar to nursing homes. In the prison industry, and elderly inmate is one over the age of 55. Enough of my banter, here is the article:
Yohannes Johnson, 55, serving 75 years to life in an upstate New York prison, heads the Lifer’s and Long-Termer’s Organization, part of a growing club of inmates locked up for life nationwide, reports the Associated Press. Corrections officials are considering different options for older inmates while some research suggests keeping them locked up until they die might be an expensive and unnecessary price for the public to pay. Nationally, nearly 10 percent of more than 2.3 million inmates were serving life sentences in 2008, including 41,095 people doing life without parole, up 22 percent in five years, says The Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to prison.
“The theme is we’re protecting society, then the question is: From what?” said Soffiyah Elijah of the Correctional Association of New York, a watchdog group. She said with the cost of keeping a state inmate $55,000 a year – a cost that grows as they age and their medical needs increase – a financial analysis shows that parole and probation are far cheaper punishments that can also satisfy the public need for retribution. Data show new crimes by convicted felons steadily declining from their teens through their dotage. “What kind of treatment programs should we be considering for the offenders who have a sentence of life without parole, or enter the system with sentences of 50 years to life?” New York Corrections Commissioner Brian Fischer asked on the 40th anniversary of the deadly riots at Attica, a maximum-security prison in New York State.
See The Crime Report’s series “The Graying of America’s Prisons” for more information.
When you say, “I thought that this article was super interesting because it substantiates an argument that I have had with opponents of the death penalty,” does that mean you support a death penalty? If so, on what grounds? Or do you back the premise in the article that probation and parole for aging inmates would be more cost effective? This is a thorny issue that, like so many, defies simple solutions.
I had a feeling that someone was going to ask me that….
Okay, here goes. I am a proponent of the death penalty, however, at the moment I think it is, and has been grossly misapplied. I am in favor of a nationwide moratorium to review current death penalty cases.
Next, I am not in favor of sentencing one to death based on circumstantial evidence or eyewitness testimony. Both of those, to me, are like sentencing someone based on the “word” of another, without any tangible proof.
Furthermore, I do not think that one should be able to be sentenced to death in cases where there is no body recovered.
So, basically, I think there needs to be an overhaul of the system and the use of the death penalty, sentencing one to death should not be a common occurrence.
Now, that I have this out of the way, when I do engage in the occasional death penalty discussion, it is very hard to convince me that it is best that we house and support someone who may be looking at a sentence of triple life + 120 years. The most common argument I have encountered from anti-death penalty people has been cost. It is almost always cited by anti-execution advocates that it is cheaper to house an inmate for life than it is to execute.
I have been taking the stance that before mandatory sentencing, three strikes and truth in sentencing laws, that might have been the case. Now, we have more people being sentenced to longer sentences and taking care of them is very costly. The trend is going to be, to start building these “maximum security” nursing homes which will cost millions upon millions of dollars, not to include the cost of around the clock medical personnel, medication and other operations costs.
The cost of housing an inmate for life is going to quickly surpass the cost that it takes to carry out the death penalty, where applicable ((under my rules…lol)
Ms. Stang,
The one argument that I have never used in my opposition to the death penalty is the financial one. To me it reduces human life to a monetary value. Rather, my opposition stems from many of the caveats you have stated in its application and the nagging sense I have that “there’s got to be a better way.” Rather than debate the issue here, however, I will simply thank you for giving me grist for my thought-mill. Now I am off to my alternate blog:
http://steven-fay.blogspot.com/ Lone Wolf Chronicles to articulate my thoughts. (But please give me time. Well, not a life sentence sort of “giving time”, but simply time enough to compose my thoughts and express them. Life – geez! There’s the sentencing connotation again – has a habit of interfering with my creative processes.)
I completely understand the humanistic component to this, hence all of my contentions. Sadly, though, when it comes down to it, the criminal justice system is an industry, a state one run one (except for the private prisons, which are a whole different topic)but an industry none the less and the states look at dollars and sense.
I actually think, if we could lessen sentences for non-violent offenders, that in and of itself would help lessen budget issues as far as prisons are concerned. Based on the death penalty structure in my world…lol, only those convicted by “smoking gun” basically would be eligible and if that is the case, they have no value for human life, not even their own.