More Senior Prisoners?
Sad – But a Sign of Our Times
Japanese prisoners who are sixty years old and older now represent a whopping 16% of the county’s jail population. The crime rate in Japan continues to be fairly low but yet the number of elderly prisoners has doubled in the past ten years. Seniors are getting busted for minor and petty crimes. Some of the crimes are a necessity for survival. They are shoplifting. Stealing. The elderly population in Japan is not receiving enough family support and is facing financial difficulties.
The other sad aspect of the reason behind the increase. Some of these people are better off getting arrest and thrown in prison where they’ll get fed and have a bed to sleep on. They’ll even get medical care. This is just another reflection of the poor economic times we’re all going through. Makes you appreciate what you have.
Free the Elderly?
This seems to be a week with a prison theme. Someone had a bright idea to save the country tons of money. The idea involves elderly convicts.
Recently, the population of senior criminals, either getting caught for the first time or committing their first crime, has been growing at a very fast rate. This shift in the prison population is attributed mostly due to the longer lives we now enjoy.
The average life span has grown by years and now older people are being incarcerated or being incarcerated decades ago, are living a long life in prison. The number of elderly prisoners is climbing by leaps and bounds. So, the bright idea is to save the taxpayer’s money and setting these elderly prisoners free. Some of these elderly prisoners have complex medical conditions that prisons have a hard time dealing with.
Washington has a prison for the elderly where many of the incarcerated are frail and disabled and most needed assistance with walking. The cost of housing a prisoner is roughly $24,000 a year and that number grows substantially when the prisoner is aging and has failing health.
Makes sense – so I’m guessing the idea will get shot down.
Remember Life in Prison?
Aren’t you amazed when you read about how common it is for killers, sex offenders, rapists, and other violent offenders to be released after doing a token amount of years? Even if a man had taken a life, it wouldn’t be so unusual to hear he’s been let out after serving less than 10 years – with good behavior of course.
VivaLeroy Nash, who has become deaf, almost blind, and suffering mentally from dementia, has been imprisoned since he was 15 years old. Except for a couple of bouts with freedom, he was imprisoned for almost 80 years. Nash was originally imprisoned for armed robbery. Once getting his freedom, Nash killed a police officer in 1947.
Again in 1977, he was given his freedom but it didn’t last long. He was quickly arrested and charged with murder again but escaped a prison work crew in 1982. Within a month he again killed and robbed and was captured. Even though he was sentenced to long stretches of imprisonment, at times to over 30 years, he continued to rob and kill once freed.
I do believe that some people are never going to change. They have no regard for another person’s life. They should never get a “second chance”. Unfortunately, our penal system and the justice system needs much work.
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