CALIFORNIA'S PRISONS are in crisis, bursting at the seams with nearly
twice as many inmates as they were designed to hold. Things are so bad
that this month, federal judges will begin holding hearings on whether
to impose inmate population caps. The Legislature's solution: build
53,000 new prison beds, at a jaw-dropping estimated cost of $7.4
billion. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already started transferring
the first of thousands of convicts to other states. But there's at
least one safe, simple and immediate thing the state could do that
would free up prison beds and save millions: parole inmates who are too
old to be dangerous.
Prisoners are expensive to confine, and none more so than elderly ones.
The typical inmate costs California taxpayers more than $34,000 a year,
according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
But elderly inmates typically cost up to three times more, primarily
because of their greater medical needs. Many older prisoners are five
to 10 years "older" physiologically than their chronological age, their
bodies prematurely worn down from years of alcohol and drug abuse and
the stress of prison life. According to the Washington-based Project
for Older Prisoners, the typical convict who is 55 or older --
considered geriatric among prison experts -- will suffer three chronic
illnesses while incarcerated. And taxpayers foot every penny of their
medical bills. That's no small matter in a state where the correctional
system has grown to gargantuan proportions. Fifteen years ago,
California incarcerated about 105,000 inmates; today, it holds more
than 170,000, at an annual cost exceeding $8 billion.
Healthcare costs have grown even faster. The Department of Corrections
will spend almost $1.8 billion on medical care this year, double the
amount of just five years ago. That's partly because the number of
elderly prisoners also has surged in the last decade, the result of
baby-boom demographics and ever-lengthening sentences.
By the Department of Corrections' own count, it now holds more than
9,000 prisoners 55 or older, many of them already in such dismal health
that they couldn't commit new crimes if they wanted to. Nearly half of
them are 60 or older. If you move the bar up to age 70, that still
leaves hundreds of inmates. Paroling just those septuagenarians could
save tens of millions of dollars annually.
Of course, not every prisoner 55 or older could be safely released.
Many committed serious crimes and are in good enough health that they
need to be locked up. But in general, releasing ailing elderly
prisoners under the ongoing supervision of a parole officer is a pretty
safe bet. Study after study has found that the recidivism rate for
prisoners 55 or older is far lower than that of younger ones. And the
cost of monitoring a convict in California on parole is about
one-eighth that of keeping one in prison.
There's a nonfinancial benefit too. Letting sick, feeble old men and
women live out their last days at home with their families is more
humane than letting them slowly disintegrate in cellblocks filled with
predatory younger inmates. Even those who would wind up alone on the
outside, living off Social Security, veterans benefits or welfare still
would cost taxpayers less than keeping them in prison.
Several other cash-strapped states are releasing nonviolent offenders
to save money, including such law-and-order bastions as Virginia and
Louisiana. And California, like many states, already has little-used
policies allowing for compassionate release of sick or elderly inmates
deemed harmless.
Nobody wants to see dangerous felons let loose just to save money. But
letting hundreds of old men and women in poor health go home, under the
scrutiny of parole agents, hardly seems like much of a threat. Would we
really rather keep old convicts behind bars and cut funding for
kindergartens and hospitals?
Originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.