By Marianne Lyons Delorey, Ph.D.
CNN reported last month that older women in Japan are occasionally getting themselves arrested in order to get into prisons as an alternative to aging in the community. While there are drawbacks, the benefits are tempting for someone with limited means: three meals a day, health care, including appropriate elder care, and social interaction. Prisoners are made to work if able, but most don’t mind that. They enjoy contributing again.
One sobering statistic was, “Across Japan, the number of prisoners aged 65 or older nearly quadrupled from 2003 to 2022 – and it’s changed the nature of incarceration. Due to the increasing age of prisoners, many of the jobs available to inmates were care jobs – helping bathe and toilet other prisoners.”
After reading this, I researched what American prisons looked like. The statistics are shocking similar.
NPR recently reported:
“In Oklahoma, the geriatric population has quadrupled in the past two decades. In Virginia, a quarter of the state’s prisoners will be geriatric by 2030. And in Texas, geriatric inmates are the fastest-growing demographic in the entire system.
“Prison systems across the U.S. have a constitutional obligation to provide adequate health care, and they’re racing to figure out how to care for the elderly in their custody — and how to pay for it.”
Having worked with lower income older adults for my entire career, I have observed that the population I serve can roughly be divided into two groups:
One group who was always poor and grew old and
One group that grew old and found that they were poor.
I wonder if the U.S. prison system sees something similar – a group of inmates who age while incarcerated and a group of inmates who grow old and find themselves getting in trouble.
In affordable housing, I found that the group who were poor and grew old often had a lifetime of hardship behind them. In addition to poverty, they sometimes had substance use, disabilities including mental illness, or other challenges that kept them from succeeding.
If my suspicion is correct, this group is akin to people who aged while incarcerated.
Our lawmakers should spend time now to broaden opportunities for younger folks to prevent this from worsening. Nonetheless, we have a graying prison population now. It is imperative that this situation be addressed so that prison does not look like a reasonable alternative for elders looking for care. Our prison system was not intended to supplement nursing homes. They are not physically designed well for that purpose.
U.S. prisons are going to need very different accommodations than they currently have. More people will not be able to use a top bunk. Cells will need to be walker and wheelchair accessible, and someone will have to help these seniors with their Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) and Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Additionally, corrections officers will need training in how to provide care for older people who cannot do for themselves. Not typically being thought of as caregivers, this role will stretch the imagination of a stressed system.
In short, we need to revamp what we do and how we do it.
In good news, in the US, older adults have the lowest rate of reincarceration when they are released. This contrasts to Japan, who has a high rate of reincarceration for older adults. It sounds like this is in part due to preference to stay in and the social stigma (and subsequent isolation) that comes from being incarcerated in Japan.
Developing a plan for our older adults does not stop at those who are in our communities. We need to think about our prison population and what release looks like in a world where they will need care.
Marianne Lyons Delorey, Ph.D. is the executive director of Colony Retirement Homes. She can be reached at 508-755-0444 or mdelorey@colonyretirement.com and www.colonyretirementhomes.com.
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