In Britain, in England and Wales in 2019, the number of prisoners, both men and women, over the age of 50 has almost tripled from 4,824 in 2002 to 13,617 in 2019. In fact, about 16% of prisoners were over the age of 50 as of June 2019, compared with just 7% in 2002. Just 4% were women.
In addition, over 1,600 were old men of 70 and over with oldest at 104. Tougher prison sentences and the rise in the number of those convicted of historic sexual offences are believed to be part of the reason for the ageing prison population.
Dr Mary Turner, Reader in Health Services research at Huddersfield University said : "
People tend to get longer sentences, even in older age, now than they might have done in the past and there are now more older people going into prison than there are being released. We can't just see these numbers going up and up and trying to cope with it in a prison environment so we're going to get to a point where we have to think of alternatives and we have to find solutions." She said options could include building secure care homes and considering alternatives to custodial sentence for older offenders.
Mark Fairhurst, the National Chair of the Prison Officers Association also said the system was failing to meet the needs of elderly inmates :
"We need more disabled access cells situated at ground floor level. We need 24-hour health care and we need proper training for staff."
A former prison officer said that when he started work older prisoners were transferred to less secure jails when they approached the end of their sentences, but that had changed.
"Now you're getting older prisoners starting big sentences and the young prison officers are coming straight from university, with very, very little life experience and then they're having to deal with major traumatic events like somebody dying in front of them or caring for somebody that is at the end of their life." The Prison Officers Association confirmed that more and more inmates were either frail, or incontinent or had dementia.
Ex-prisoner Ken Denton, from West Yorkshire where he was housed in an over-50s wing at the prison. He said :
"When you look at some of the prisons, you know, they're three or four landings high, thin ladder stairways, how do you expect an elderly person to climb them? When they come in, you are assessed and they'll say well you should be located 'flat' but if there's no space where you going to put somebody? How can you put somebody at second or third landing? You can't, it's inhumane."
He went on : "I saw people with cancer, saw people with diabetes, long term prisoners that need their medication but can't get to their medication because the medication hatch is on the second floor and they've got to go to a lift but they can't get into the lift because there's no staff to take them. If you needed a wheelchair, it might take you three to four months to get a wheelchair because one had to be designed for yourself and it also had to come from the specific local authority in the area you came from."
Apparently, according to the the Prison Service, all is well and it has said :
"An ageing prison population poses particular challenges, which is why we work closely with local councils and health care providers to make sure we meet the needs of elderly prisoners. Last year, a report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons found there was good work ongoing to adapt prisons for older inmates, and we have updated guidance for governors on how to best support them."
This doesn't quite square with Chief Inspector Peter Clarke, who took a different view when he said :
"It feels to me as if they're trying to shoehorn this problem into existing accommodation instead of thinking more radically." He also said :
"The Prison Service has so far has said that it's not going to develop an overall strategy to deal with this issue. When prisoners get older, less capable physically or infirm, they don't provide an escape risk, they still have to be held in custody very often and it's not to say they wouldn't present a risk to the public if they were completely at liberty. But the question is : Do they need to be held still in levels of security which are not needed for their physical capabilities and which inevitably are very expensive as well?"
Needless to say, in Brexit-obsessed Britain and with pressure on the Government to spend more money on schools, hospitals and social care, improving the conditions of an increasing number of old men in prison will gain little sympathy with the public and form a very low priority in terms of additional spending. For this group, Britain is very much 'No Country for Old Men.'
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