Aging Prisoners: A Crisis in Need of Intervention

ANNOTATION: This white paper is divided into four parts: introduction and overview; public health, mental health, palliative, and end-of-life care issues; criminal justice policies and practices; and interdisciplinary collaboration and community partnerships. Anyone working with elderly offenders should read this report. Chapters of this publication are: “Introduction” by Tina Maschi, Mary Beth Morrissey, Russ Immarigeon, and Samantha Sutfin; “Visualizing the Aging Prisoner Crisis: A Conceptual Model for Policy and Practice Decision Making and Action” by Maschi and Morrissey; “Executive Summary and Recommendations” by Immarigeon; “Developing Ethical and Palliative Responses to Suffering Among Seriously Ill Aging Prisoners: Content Analysis Implications and Action Steps” by Morrissey, Maschi, and Junghee Han; “Forget Me Not: Dementia in Prisons” by Maschi, Jung Kwak, Eujung Ko, and Morrissey; “Trauma and Stress among Older Adults in the Criminal Justice System: A Review of the Literature with Implications for Social Work” by Maschi; “Age, Cumulative Trauma, Stressful Life Events, and Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms among Older Adults in Prison” by Maschi and Deborah Courtney; “Substance Use and Older Adults in the Criminal Justice System” by Keith Morgan; “True Grit: A Structured Living Program for Older Adults in Prison” by Mary T. Harrison, Karen Kopera-Frye, and William O. Harrison; “Criminal Sentencing Policy Reform and Aging Prison Populations” by Kathleen Auerhahn; “Doing Hard Time: Issues and Challenges Facing Older Women in Prison” by Azrini Wahidin; “Another Forgotten Population: Community Reintegration for Older Adults Leaving Prison” by Margaret E. Leigey; “Disproportionate Minority Contact in the American Juvenile Justice System: Implications for Older Adults in Prisons?” by Susan McCarter; “Advocacy, Elderly Prisoners, and Mass Imprisonment” by Immarigeon; “It’s Still About Time: Aging Prisoners, Increasing Costs, & Geriatric Release” by Tina Chiu; “Social Work and Older Inmates: NASW [National Association of Social Workers] Position Paper” by Melvin Wilson; “Personal & Professional Contact Patterns among Older Adults in Prison: Interdisciplinary Practice Implications” by Morrissey, Sutfin, and Maschi; and “Interdisciplinary Collaboration Practices with Older Adults in the Community: Implications for Prison and Community Corrections” by Maschi, Morrissey, Sutfin, and Manoj Pardasani. The appendix is “The Viewing Room: Films about Older Adults in Prison” by Rebecca Ackerman.