The costs are large, the benefits slight
ISMAEL IGARTUA got his first job, as a counsellor at a homeless shelter, when he was 55 years old. For the previous 29 years he was imprisoned on charges stemming from an incident during which he shot a police officer in the arm. In prison he earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in theology.
After his release, Mr Igartua says he had to learn how to order food in a restaurant, and relearn how to cross a busy New York street. At least he had a family to return to. Many older ex-convicts do not: more than 70% of prisoners above the age of 50 released in New York went directly to a homeless shelter.
Between 1993 and 2013 America’s crime rate fell from around 52 crimes per 1,000 people to 23. At the same time, largely because of America’s penchant for handing out long sentences, the number of people over 55 in state prisons rose from 26,300 to 131,500, and their share of the total more than tripled. According to the Osborne Association, a New York-based non-profit, by 2030 more than 400,000 prisoners are expected to be aged 55 and older—one-third of the total prison population, and a 4,400% increase since 1980.
Incarcerating an older prisoner can cost up to five times as much as jailing a younger one. Prisoners are entitled to health care, but it is often expensively and inefficiently delivered. Mr Igartua says that getting a single steroid injection required two eight-hour journeys accompanied by two prison guards. Older prisoners tend to be sicker than younger ones, and people often enter prison having had drug problems, mental-health woes and little access to good health care on the outside.
They also tend to be less likely to reoffend. Within three years, 43% of all released offenders have committed another crime. The rate for those between 50 and 64 is just 7%, and just 4% for those older than 65. People age out of crime—homicide and drug-arrest rates peak at 19—and criminal careers tend to be short. Sentences that keep people jailed into their dotage for crimes they committed in their youth drain the public purse with little public-safety benefit.