Georgia prison population is growing and graying
It's not news to criminal defense lawyers in Georgia, but the Athens, Georgia newspaper reports today on the aging of the state prison population. This is a problem both for the elderly inmates who die in custody, and for Georgia taxpayers who have to fund the escalating costs of inmate health care.
I knew that the prison population was exploding and getting older, but I had no idea it was this bad. As the Athens paper reports:
Justice Department statistics show that the number of sentenced inmates in federal and state prisons age 55 and older has shot up 33 percent between 2000 and 2005, the most recent year for which the data was available. That's a far faster pace than the 9 percent growth overall.The trend is particularly pronounced in the South, which is home to some of the nation's toughest sentencing laws. In 16 Southern states, the growth rate has escalated by an average of 145 percent since 1997, according to the Southern Legislative Conference.
The reason is obvious - mandatory minimum sentences, often for first-time nonviolent offenders. Some good policy resources on mandatory sentences and their consequences can be found on the Justice Fellowship website.
Of course, people charged with crimes don't have a lobbyist representing them in the state capital. So, it's easy and politically popular to increase punishment for crimes. But a lot of the "tough on crime" laws may be short-sighted.
Perhaps the Georgia legislature will take notice as the costs of incarceration keep climbing and reintroduce some fairness in sentence practices. But given what happened this last session (elimination of the Sentence Review Panel, etc.), I wouldn't hold my breath.
