It's common to compare and contrast "Death Penalty vs. Life Without Parole". But do people REALLY envision what growing old inside a penitentiary is like?

The issue of aging inmates is becoming both a financial and moral dilemma here in Canada.

Here's an interesting magazinearticle on the topic.

(If this link doesn't work, go to <www.macleans.ca> and type "Kingston Penitentiary" in the Search Archives box.

The article is called GROWING OLD INSIDE, subtitled "After decades behind bars, how can aging, ailing inmates adjust to life in the real world?)

Not even in Canada do we have Life Without Parole. We let them out after 25 years (if they meet Parole criteria.) Of course, that is assuming we don't break their health down completly before their sentence is up...

<www.macleans.ca/xta-asp/storyview.asp?viewtype=browse&tpl=browse_frame&vpath=/2001/04/09/specialreport/49131.shtml>

Thoughts, anyone?

Menolly

My friend Richard will be 57 when he completes his sentence, He has been incarcerated since he was 21 years old. He worries about the old inmates and works on legal briefs for them. It really bothers him that old people may die inside and tries to get them released.

It is a a disturbing picture that there are people that have spent all thier lives in the penal system and then one day be exspected to find jobs and join society at an old age. Older than what most people retire at now. No skill or tech training it will be hard for the old men to do manual labor. Sad thoughts about the tough time outside much less lack of medical care.

Hi Torrey;

Kinda in the same boat here. My very rfirst inmate I ever wrote to, may get paroled this summer.

He too is in his 50's, and has gained over 100 lbs, has uncontrolled diabetes, and his mental state...

At best we can say he is "fragile".

I don't DARE tell him, (or anyone else, for that matter) how afraid I am FOR him!

Menolly

This is sad. My uncle was released in 1996 after 16 years in locked-up for manslaughter and escape. He was in his late 50's and had no marketable skills, but was expected to find a job and get on with his life as if prison had never happened. Fortunately, I have a big family and one of my cousins owned his own contracting company and my uncle had once been a mason. He was given the job of training unskilled hands how to properly lay brick. My uncle was eventually able to buy his own vehicle and home and was pretty self-sufficient. On a sad note to this story, he was murdered last year by a man he had met in prison who he was trying to help. The man was staying with him trying to get on his feet, and nobody knows what happened. My unlce wound up shot in the head and his body stuffed in a storage shed, undiscovered for a week. The man was found a few day later in Florida driving my uncle's truck. The man's trial is coming up and I'll let you know how it turns out.

it is sad when they have to grown old on the inside. In reality by the time they get out the world is so different and hard to adjust to.. it makes things even worse for them..

I am so sorry to hear of your uncle. This is exactly the sort of situation I dread for my buddy David. He's been in for 24 years now. Some of the things we take so for granted, are absolutely beyond the ken of his imagination.

He has never seen the Canadian $2 coin. Has never used a bank card. Never received or even SEEN an email.

And he's supposed to find a job? Sick as he is? As out of touch with modern times as he is? David has no family left, of any kind.

I can't even figure out how he will get his first insulin shot the first day he is released. He is terrified! And so am I.

Menolly

This is a very real issue, and I am not sure I kniow the "RIGHT" answer (if there is a RIGHT answer) I do not believe in the death penanlty bu for certain crimes if you dont have LWOP what would be the acceptable alternative? There is a small minority of inmates that it is really not safe for them to be in the community-i still think even in those circumstances those inmates should be alllowed to do things that make them feel productive, useful, ALIVE. For those who have been in for many years and then are released or paroled we have GOT TO start some trnasitional programming to help prepare them for the return to the community- and I dont mean a week before their release. i actually think of these things quite often, and would be interested in hearing other's ideas-

Well Sherri:

The Kingston Pen here in Ontario, finally set up an 8 bed palliative unit, after the Billy Bell inquest.

(Billy died unattended of AIDS related meningitis. There was a huge inquest in 1999, with lots of recommendations regarding health care of inmates.)

The murmurings of those who dare to murmur, are now suggesting a SECURE facility nursing home for inmates who are growing old, and or are severely sick.

I like that vision. A nursing home for inmates, with REAL health care workers... I'd be first in line to apply for a job there!

Menolly

I would think a max security hospital with different wards depending on the treatment/control needed would be ideal where LVN's would be more in control then guards and doctors as overseer's of a number of wards on the inside.

I think LVN's would fight to get what the guards are paid. So the overhead in that area wouldn't be any different then a regular prison.

IMO, guards are over paid for being a "bull" in a china shop anyway!

Question, does the general population want these inmates back on the outside? It seems, the answer is a WOOPING "NO"!

Until that attitude is changed, there's a long hard road ahead for anything, to turn about!

The "mass's" control the vote, and the politicians control "CHANGE"! And prison reform isn't, politicly correct! Ask any State politicians, and the subject will be evaded in one form or another!

I haven't said anything that isn't already known, maybe just used different words. But all the organizations that have try'd to make changes, over years of time, hasn't gotten the job done!

The question "still" remains, What is it going to take?

A concern I've had since they instituted the 3-strikes law here is, with the cost of incarcerating older inmates, they may have an incentive to give sub-standard medical care so that prisoners will die early, so they can save money etc.---Ken

Ken and Bray;

In my humble opinion, I think medical rights are abused because it is under the jurisdiction of Corectional Services Canada, and not the Ministry of Health.

If somehow it was "subcontracted out" to a governmental department that actually is geared towards health CARE, and not left in the hands of those whose main focus is CONTROL, a whole new mentality would suffuse the system.

Would we put daycare for children in the hands of say, the Department of Highways? Would we put the regulations of highways under the jurisdiction of say, the department of health?

I say let the appropriate people oversee it, and appropriately trained staff work in it.

Menolly

THIS IS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE..... THERE ARE QUITE A FEW OLDER INMATES IN THIS STATE ALSO...... IF BUTCH SERVES ALL OF HIS TIME HE WILL BE RELEASED IN 2010. HE WILL BE 45 YEARS OLD.HE WILL HAVE SERVED 20 YEARS..... AT 45 HE WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED YOUNG ANY LONGER.... BEING INCARCERATED FOR 20 YEARS WILL NOT HELP HIM LEARN ABOUT LIFE AS IT IS TODAY.....

MENOLLY, WHAT IS THE ANSWER.... HOW CAN THIS SITUATION BE COMBATED?

DONNA

Donna:

You think I have all the answers? Not at all. I've no idea what we SHOULD do. I only know what we SHOULD NOT do.

I think all the rhetoric about "rehabilitation" should be made real, for starters. A man who gets out at age 45, or 55 or older, needs a job skill or two that will serve him in today's job market.

He certainly needs his health.

I think we need to convince society that simply imprisoning someone is the "punishment" in toto. Making them sick, or even less capable of earning an income when they get out, sets them, AND US as a society, up for failure.

They go to jail AS PUNISHMENT, not FOR MORE PUNISHMENT.

The inherent loss of freedom, mobility, time in the job-force, lost educational opportunities etc. is quite enough punishment for me. And even those at times seem unfair, particularly when the crime is something less that murder etc. Many crimes occur in the first place BECAUSE of lack of education and employment opportunities etc.

Perhaps we need to fix THAT.

But, I don't claim to know the answers.

Menolly