Prisons as Nursing Homes
As the nation’s large baby boomer population ages, so will a big portion of America’s prison population. And when inmates get older, they get increasingly expensive to incarcerate, placing added burdens on already strained prison budgets. KESQ TV
Experts point out, however, that while aging inmates might be more costly to imprison, they are also becoming less likely to commit crimes. Thus some rethinking of incarceration policy might be in order.
"The benefits go down just as the cost goes up," said Franklin Zimring, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor who works with the Institute for Legal Research. "Why you need a $100,000-a-year guard for an offender in a wheelchair . . . you can't figure it out." BOB PURVIS of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel