Incarcerating the Elderly
The issue being discussed in this paper will be “the issue of the ‘graying’ of the American prison and parole population and the unique problems that elderly prisoners face while incarcerated and subsequent to release” (Stojkovic, 2007, pg. 98). Incarceration of elderly criminals is a highly debated topic in criminal justice. The definition of elderly criminal in this case will be a person 60 years or older that commits a criminal offense. This is not a new topic; however, there is not a lot of research conducted on elderly offenders. There are many arguments as to whether these elderly criminals should be treated the same as younger criminals and whether it is cost effective to put the elderly in prison. This paper will discuss the pros and cons of incarcerating the elderly. First, the pros of incarcerating the elderly criminals will be discussed. Contrary to popular belief that after a certain age criminals stop committing crime, the age of elderly offenders ranged from 60 to 99 years old which shows that no matter how old someone is they may still commit crime. Also, 86.36 percent of elderly offenders knew their victim personally (Patel 442). This is a scary statistic for friends and family that are close with elderly criminals. The first pro for incarcerating the elderly is that in a study conducted between 2006 and 2010 rape against young females was found in 31 percent of the elderly incarcerated, 36 percent of elderly incarcerated were found guilty of murder or attempted murder, and 4 percent were found guilty of selling minor girls (Patel 443). This shows that they are dangerous criminals no matter what age they are. The people that argue that elderly people are harmless are clearly wrong. Rape and murder are some of the most serious crimes in society; if someone is able to commit such crimes they are able to serve time for those crimes. Furthermore, because society is aging more and more, criminals are committing serious crimes at an older age.