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Nursing homes with razor wire. Are elderly prisoners really a threat to public safety?

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Opinion Nursing homes with razor wire Are elderly prisoners really a threat to public safety? By David Fathi December 23, 2009 Sometime in the 1970s, the United States began a love affair with incarceration that continues to this day. After holding nearly steady for decades, our prison population began to climb as criminal justice policy took a sharply punitive turn, with the massive criminalization of drug use, "three strikes" laws and other harsh sentencing practices. More people were going to prison, and staying there longer. By 2005, the prison population was six times what it had been in 1975. One little-known side effect of this population explosion has been a sharp increase in the number of elderly people behind bars. According to the Justice Department, in 1980 the United States had about 9,500 prisoners age 55 and older; by 2008, the number had increased tenfold, to 94,800...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on December 24, 2009 (boomark / email).