News (Media Awareness Project) - US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down |
| Title: | US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down |
| Published On: | 2000-03-07 |
| Source: | Virginian-Pilot (VA) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-05 01:18:01 |
COST OF HOUSING OLDER INMATES GOES UP AS RISK GOES DOWN
Virginia prisons are looking more and more like nursing homes.
At Deerfield Correctional Center in Southampton County, old men maneuver
the wide aisles between their cots in wheelchairs. Nurses, not armed
guards, keep watch over the inmates from a glassed-in office and make
regular rounds to dispense their medicine.
This is the new face of corrections in Virginia. The Deerfield prison, with
its gray concrete walls and green roof, resembles a warehouse in an
industrial park. But it is becoming a warehouse of a different kind: one in
which to keep convicts locked up into their 60s, 70s and 80s.
The number of elderly inmates -- those 55 and older -- in state and federal
prisons has more than doubled in the past decade and is expected to keep
climbing in the years ahead. This is especially true in states such as
Virginia, which lengthened many criminal sentences and abolished parole
five years ago.
One-third of Virginia prisoners are now serving 20 years to life, making
the state No. 11 in the nation for long sentences.
Already in Virginia, 3 percent of state inmates are 55 and older.
As prisoners age, critics say, the cost-benefit ratio of incarcerating them
grows ever more wildly out of whack.
The National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, an Alexandria-based
organization that advocates alternatives to incarceration, estimates the
average yearly cost of confining an elderly prisoner at $69,000 -- more
than three times the $22,000 spent on ordinary inmates.
At that rate, the cost of keeping a convict behind bars for 20-plus years
could range into the millions.
The cost rises steeply because of aging inmates' growing health-care needs,
which tend to be greater than those of the general population because of
factors like drug and alcohol abuse and a history of poor medical care.
The Virginia Department of Corrections budgeted nearly $57 million for
medical expenses in fiscal year 1998, according to the Corrections Yearbook.
The money goes for such things as medical equipment and supplies, drugs,
X-rays, and salaries for doctors, nurses and nursing assistants. To
accommodate geriatric inmates, prisons must be built or modified to include
extra-wide wheelchair-accessible doorways, ramps and grab bars for the
handicapped.
One study of elderly prisoners in California found 80 percent with at least
one chronic health condition, 38 percent with hypertension, 28 percent with
heart disease and 16 percent with cataracts.
A case in point is Herman Shipp, 65. Shipp was one of the first wave of 40
elderly inmates moved to Deerfield prison last year as the state began
gradually converting it into an assisted-living facility where geriatric
prisoners can get help with daily tasks like bathing and dressing.
Shipp has been locked up 43 years -- two-thirds of his life -- for two
murders in the Charlottesville area. He suffers from hypertension and heart
trouble. In recent weeks, he has been in and out of a wheelchair due to a
fluid buildup that caused severe swelling in his legs.
He has been treated in the medical department at Deerfield, the infirmary
at nearby Greensville Correctional Center, the local hospital in
Southampton County and the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.
He is due for mandatory release in August.
``All I want out of this life is to be free once again and to get back what
I lost,'' Shipp wrote last fall in a letter to The Virginian-Pilot. ``I
will be free next year or be in the ground next year. Any way, I will be a
free man.''
Parole Increasingly Rare In Get-Tough Era
Robert Lee Taylor is less certain about his future.
Taylor, 58, is doing a 119-year sentence at Powhatan Correctional Center
for two armed robberies in Portsmouth.
``I'm fortunate,'' Taylor said in a recent interview. ``I'm still in pretty
good health.'' His only medical problem in recent years was a cholesterol
blockage that was corrected by minor surgery.
He has served 25 years and, because his crimes predated the 1995 abolition
of parole, is eligible for release. But parole is increasingly rare for
Virginia prisoners in this get-tough era. Taylor has been turned down eight
times -- the last time despite a glowing report from a counselor concluding
that parole ``would be compatible with the best interests of all concerned
including those of society.''
His mandatory release date is 2033 -- ``but I won't make it,'' Taylor said.
He would have served 58 years and would be 91 years old.
By then, based on the $69,000 annual cost estimate for inmates past the age
of 55, Virginia taxpayers would have spent a staggering $3 million on
Taylor's confinement.
Meanwhile, taxpayers who look to prisons as a crime-prevention measure are
getting rapidly diminishing returns on their investment because of the
``burnout'' phenomenon: the tendency for criminal offenders to turn away
from crime as they pass through middle age.
A 1995 federal study of state recidivism statistics found that only 1.4
percent of parolees and probationers returned to prison for re-offending
were 55 or older.
State's Oldest Inmate Is 91
The longest-serving inmate in the Virginia prison system is Frank West Jr.,
68, who is doing a 100-year sentence on burglary and grand larceny charges.
He entered the system in 1953.
The oldest inmate is Jessie Smith, 91. He is serving 15 1/2 years for
second-degree homicide and has been locked up since 1993.. Ralph Johnson,
66, is doing 103 years at Nottoway Correctional Center for a 1954 Richmond
robbery and a 1956 fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate in a prison fight. He
suffers from emphysema, diabetes and hypertension. He has been turned down
for parole six times.
Johnson says every prisoner reaches a point when he is ready to give up the
criminal lifestyle.
``I'm going to tell you something from an old convict,'' he said in an
interview. ``There's a time -- I don't care if you've got a hundred years
or a thousand years or five years -- there's a time when every man is
ready. There's a time when a man looks back over his life and he's reached
a stage when he is ready to go. He is ready to give it up. He doesn't want
the fast track. . . .
``Man, I'm ready. I'm ready for something better than this.''
Be that as it may, says Corrections Director Ron Angelone, Virginia keeps
violent criminals behind bars into their dotage because Virginians --
through their elected officials -- have demanded it.
``I think it comes down to what the laws of the community will tolerate,''
Angelone said in an interview last year. ``. . . These individuals are
unpredictable. What's to say that when they get to be 60, something won't
trigger violence? Society got tired of unpredictable behavior.
``You never can tell, and society has said we don't want to tell. After a
certain point, society has said we're not giving another chance.''
Below is the index for this series of articles:
US VA: Virginia Is Paying The Price For Prison Boom
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n326/a09.html
US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a01.html
US VA: Virginia's Incarceration Rate Far Exceeds Crime Rate
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a02.html
US VA: Department Of Corrections Denies Information Requests
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a03.html
US VA: Drugs, Not Violence, Are The Fuel For Prison Growth
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a04.html
US VA: Expert And Inmates Find Faults In Prison Drug-Treatment
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n331/a13.html
US VA: Poll Shows Little Support For Gilmore's Get-Tough Drug
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a05.html
US VA: Blacks Imprisoned At Rate Out Of Proportion To Drug Use
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a06.html
US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a01.html
US VA: New Prisons Bring Much-Needed Jobs To Rural Areas
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a02.html
US VA: Party And Racial Lines Divide Lawmakers On Prison Reform
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n332/a01.html
Virginia prisons are looking more and more like nursing homes.
At Deerfield Correctional Center in Southampton County, old men maneuver
the wide aisles between their cots in wheelchairs. Nurses, not armed
guards, keep watch over the inmates from a glassed-in office and make
regular rounds to dispense their medicine.
This is the new face of corrections in Virginia. The Deerfield prison, with
its gray concrete walls and green roof, resembles a warehouse in an
industrial park. But it is becoming a warehouse of a different kind: one in
which to keep convicts locked up into their 60s, 70s and 80s.
The number of elderly inmates -- those 55 and older -- in state and federal
prisons has more than doubled in the past decade and is expected to keep
climbing in the years ahead. This is especially true in states such as
Virginia, which lengthened many criminal sentences and abolished parole
five years ago.
One-third of Virginia prisoners are now serving 20 years to life, making
the state No. 11 in the nation for long sentences.
Already in Virginia, 3 percent of state inmates are 55 and older.
As prisoners age, critics say, the cost-benefit ratio of incarcerating them
grows ever more wildly out of whack.
The National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, an Alexandria-based
organization that advocates alternatives to incarceration, estimates the
average yearly cost of confining an elderly prisoner at $69,000 -- more
than three times the $22,000 spent on ordinary inmates.
At that rate, the cost of keeping a convict behind bars for 20-plus years
could range into the millions.
The cost rises steeply because of aging inmates' growing health-care needs,
which tend to be greater than those of the general population because of
factors like drug and alcohol abuse and a history of poor medical care.
The Virginia Department of Corrections budgeted nearly $57 million for
medical expenses in fiscal year 1998, according to the Corrections Yearbook.
The money goes for such things as medical equipment and supplies, drugs,
X-rays, and salaries for doctors, nurses and nursing assistants. To
accommodate geriatric inmates, prisons must be built or modified to include
extra-wide wheelchair-accessible doorways, ramps and grab bars for the
handicapped.
One study of elderly prisoners in California found 80 percent with at least
one chronic health condition, 38 percent with hypertension, 28 percent with
heart disease and 16 percent with cataracts.
A case in point is Herman Shipp, 65. Shipp was one of the first wave of 40
elderly inmates moved to Deerfield prison last year as the state began
gradually converting it into an assisted-living facility where geriatric
prisoners can get help with daily tasks like bathing and dressing.
Shipp has been locked up 43 years -- two-thirds of his life -- for two
murders in the Charlottesville area. He suffers from hypertension and heart
trouble. In recent weeks, he has been in and out of a wheelchair due to a
fluid buildup that caused severe swelling in his legs.
He has been treated in the medical department at Deerfield, the infirmary
at nearby Greensville Correctional Center, the local hospital in
Southampton County and the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.
He is due for mandatory release in August.
``All I want out of this life is to be free once again and to get back what
I lost,'' Shipp wrote last fall in a letter to The Virginian-Pilot. ``I
will be free next year or be in the ground next year. Any way, I will be a
free man.''
Parole Increasingly Rare In Get-Tough Era
Robert Lee Taylor is less certain about his future.
Taylor, 58, is doing a 119-year sentence at Powhatan Correctional Center
for two armed robberies in Portsmouth.
``I'm fortunate,'' Taylor said in a recent interview. ``I'm still in pretty
good health.'' His only medical problem in recent years was a cholesterol
blockage that was corrected by minor surgery.
He has served 25 years and, because his crimes predated the 1995 abolition
of parole, is eligible for release. But parole is increasingly rare for
Virginia prisoners in this get-tough era. Taylor has been turned down eight
times -- the last time despite a glowing report from a counselor concluding
that parole ``would be compatible with the best interests of all concerned
including those of society.''
His mandatory release date is 2033 -- ``but I won't make it,'' Taylor said.
He would have served 58 years and would be 91 years old.
By then, based on the $69,000 annual cost estimate for inmates past the age
of 55, Virginia taxpayers would have spent a staggering $3 million on
Taylor's confinement.
Meanwhile, taxpayers who look to prisons as a crime-prevention measure are
getting rapidly diminishing returns on their investment because of the
``burnout'' phenomenon: the tendency for criminal offenders to turn away
from crime as they pass through middle age.
A 1995 federal study of state recidivism statistics found that only 1.4
percent of parolees and probationers returned to prison for re-offending
were 55 or older.
State's Oldest Inmate Is 91
The longest-serving inmate in the Virginia prison system is Frank West Jr.,
68, who is doing a 100-year sentence on burglary and grand larceny charges.
He entered the system in 1953.
The oldest inmate is Jessie Smith, 91. He is serving 15 1/2 years for
second-degree homicide and has been locked up since 1993.. Ralph Johnson,
66, is doing 103 years at Nottoway Correctional Center for a 1954 Richmond
robbery and a 1956 fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate in a prison fight. He
suffers from emphysema, diabetes and hypertension. He has been turned down
for parole six times.
Johnson says every prisoner reaches a point when he is ready to give up the
criminal lifestyle.
``I'm going to tell you something from an old convict,'' he said in an
interview. ``There's a time -- I don't care if you've got a hundred years
or a thousand years or five years -- there's a time when every man is
ready. There's a time when a man looks back over his life and he's reached
a stage when he is ready to go. He is ready to give it up. He doesn't want
the fast track. . . .
``Man, I'm ready. I'm ready for something better than this.''
Be that as it may, says Corrections Director Ron Angelone, Virginia keeps
violent criminals behind bars into their dotage because Virginians --
through their elected officials -- have demanded it.
``I think it comes down to what the laws of the community will tolerate,''
Angelone said in an interview last year. ``. . . These individuals are
unpredictable. What's to say that when they get to be 60, something won't
trigger violence? Society got tired of unpredictable behavior.
``You never can tell, and society has said we don't want to tell. After a
certain point, society has said we're not giving another chance.''
Below is the index for this series of articles:
US VA: Virginia Is Paying The Price For Prison Boom
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n326/a09.html
US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a01.html
US VA: Virginia's Incarceration Rate Far Exceeds Crime Rate
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a02.html
US VA: Department Of Corrections Denies Information Requests
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a03.html
US VA: Drugs, Not Violence, Are The Fuel For Prison Growth
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a04.html
US VA: Expert And Inmates Find Faults In Prison Drug-Treatment
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n331/a13.html
US VA: Poll Shows Little Support For Gilmore's Get-Tough Drug
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a05.html
US VA: Blacks Imprisoned At Rate Out Of Proportion To Drug Use
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a06.html
US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a01.html
US VA: New Prisons Bring Much-Needed Jobs To Rural Areas
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a02.html
US VA: Party And Racial Lines Divide Lawmakers On Prison Reform
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n332/a01.html
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