Aging prisoners will strain justice system

Razor wire topping the fences seems almost a joke at the Georgia Men’s StatePrison, where many inmates are slumped in wheelchairs or leaning onwalkers or canes.  The increasingly common number of geriatric inmates  is outpacing prison growth as a whole.  Tough sentencing laws passed in the crime-busting 1980s and 1990sare largely to blame. It’s fueling an explosion in inmate health costsfor cash-strapped states.  “We’ve got some old guys who are too sick to get out of bed,” saidAlan Adams, director of Health Services for the Georgia Department ofCorrections. “And some of them, they’re going to die inside.”  Justice Department statistics show that the number of inmates infederal and state prisons age 55 and older shot up 33 percent from 2000to 2005, the most recent year for which the data was available. That’sfaster than the 9 percent growth overall.

Source/more:  Lawrence (KS) Journal World/AP, http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/sep/30/elderly_inmates_rising_health_costs_strain_us_pris