{"id":1146,"date":"2012-01-27T13:30:17","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T18:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/prisons-as-old-age-homes.html"},"modified":"2012-01-27T13:30:17","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T18:30:17","slug":"prisons-as-old-age-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/prisons-as-old-age-homes.html","title":{"rendered":"Prisons as old age homes"},"content":{"rendered":"Planning? Prisons aren’t for planning!\n

\nDavid Crary wrote for AP today,\n\n

\n\n<\/a>\nIn corrections systems nationwide, officials are grappling with\ndecisions about geriatric units, hospices and medical parole as\nelderly inmates – with their high rates of illness and infirmity –\nmake up an ever increasing share of the prison population.\n

\nAt a time of tight state budgets, it’s a trend posing difficult\ndilemmas for policymakers. They must address soaring medical costs\nfor these older inmates and ponder whether some can be safely\nreleased before their sentences expire.\n

\nThe latest available figures from 2010 show that 8 percent of the\nprison population — 124,400 inmates — was 55 or older,\ncompared to 3\npercent in 1995, according to a report being released Friday by\nHuman Rights Watch. This oldest segment grew at six times the rate\nof the overall prison population between 1995 and 2010, the report\nsays.\n

\n“Prisons were never designed to be geriatric facilities,” said Jamie\nFellner, a Human Rights Watch special adviser who wrote the report.\n“Yet U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind\nbars.”\n<\/blockquote>\nNo, they were designed to be profit centers for prison profiteers.\n

\nLook at this sob story:\n\n\n

\nUnder a Supreme Court ruling, inmates are guaranteed decent medical\ncare, but they lack their own insurance and states must pay the full\ncost. In Georgia, according to Fellner’s report, inmates 65 and older\nhad an average yearly medical cost of $8,565, compared with $961 for\nthose under 65.\n<\/blockquote>\nGeorgia should have thought of that before locking up so many people.\n

\nSo what will they do with the older prisoners if they release them?\nMaybe they’ll be old enough for Medicaid; that’s their best bet.\nOr not:\n

\n“Nursing homes don’t want former felons,” she said. “Some states are\nlooking at starting long-term care facilities outside prison for that\ncould take care of parolees.”\n<\/blockquote>\nI’ll bet the state of Georgia, which is busy\n\nemptying its mental hospitals,<\/a>\nwon’t bother with that.\nBut the state should do something for these people, since the state has\ncreated this situation by putting\n\nmore adults in jail, prison, probation, and parole<\/a>\nthan any other state.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe state of Georgia wants to make the problem worse by\nprivatize the prisons that are already mostly populated by collateral\ndamage from the drug war,\nproviding more profits to select private industry at the expense\nof the prisoners and of you, the taxpayers.\n\nWe don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.<\/a>\nSpend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.\nFollow\n\nthis link<\/a>\nto petition the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.\n

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