Aging Prison Population: Harsh Sentencing of 1980s, 1990s didn't Foresee Health Care

Twenty-one years into his nearly 50-year sentence, the graying man steps inside his stark cell in the largest federal prison complex in America. He wears special medical boots because of a foot condition that makes walking feel as if he’s ‘‘stepping on a needle.’’ He has undergone tests for a suspected heart condition and sometimes experiences vertigo.

‘‘I get dizzy sometimes when I’m walking,’’ says the 63-year-old inmate, Bruce Harrison. ‘‘One time, I just couldn’t get up.’’

In 1994, Harrison and other members of the motorcycle group he belonged to were caught up in a drug sting by undercover federal agents, who asked them to move huge volumes of cocaine and marijuana.

After taking the job, making several runs, and each collecting $1,000, Harrison and the others were arrested and later convicted. When their sentences were handed down, however, jurors objected.

‘‘I am sincerely disheartened by the fact that these defendants, who participated in the staged off-loads and transports . . . are looking at life in prison or decades at best,’’ said one of several who wrote letters to the judge and prosecutor.

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In recent years, federal sentencing guidelines have been revised, resulting in less severe prison terms for low-level drug offenders. But Harrison, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, remains one of tens of thousands of inmates who were convicted in the ‘‘war on drugs’’ of the 1980s and 1990s and who are still behind bars.

Harsh sentencing policies, including mandatory minimums, continue to have lasting consequences for inmates and the nation’s prison system. Today, prisoners 50 and older represent the fastest-growing population in crowded federal correctional facilities, their ranks having swelled by 25 percent to nearly 31,000 from 2009 to 2013.

Some prisons have needed to set up geriatric wards, while others have effectively been turned into convalescent homes.

The aging of the prison population is driving health care costs being borne by American taxpayers. The Bureau of Prisons saw health care expenses for inmates increase 55 percent from 2006 to 2013, when it spent more than $1 billion.

That figure is nearly equal to the entire budget of the US Marshals Service or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general, who is conducting a review of the impact of the aging inmate population on prison activities, housing and costs.

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Senators Rand Paul and Corey Booker on Crime Reform

Sure it's costing Taxpayers more to take care of these people as the age ... How is releasing them before their time is up going to lessen taxpayers' burden?

If they were let out, Does anyone truly believe that they will all get good jobs and pay for their own health care?

This taxpayer would rather pay for their healthcare needs while locked up, than pay for it out here.

Sorry, this article didn't change my mind. LET THEM COMPLETE THEIR SENTENCES as given!

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