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Are all states going to need to create old-age prisons?

By Douglas A. Berman

This article in today's Kansas City Star, headlined "Missouri uses special unit to cope with growing numbers of geriatric inmates," spotlights one way that one state is dealing with an aging prison population.  Here are excerpts:As states and the federal government struggle to deal with the result of inmates serving more time, corrections experts seek solutions or at least ways to cope. One is the ?Old Timer?s Unit? at Moberly Correctional Center.  Burton is one of 22 prisoners there.  The average age is 63. Kansas provides hospice care at prisons and is building a $6 million clinic at Lansing that will house its sickest male prisoners. Florida has geriatric wings in four prisons. In California?s huge penal system, a federal receiver who oversees prisons recently asked a judge to seize $8 billion from the state to build medical units for sick and mentally ill inmates...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 17, 2008 (boomark / email).