When Easy Becomes Hard

Life-sentenced prisoners will age, decline and die. As that population grows older, their mobility and their general health will decrease. These realities generate a growing number of challenges for prison staff. This chapter reviews the most significant of those challenges. Most notably, elderly prisoners will lose mobility, develop more chronic and complicated health issues, and witness declining cognitive ability. Few prisons are designed to address these issues, just as few can provide prisoners with a comfortable and dignified death. Absent a change in sentencing policy, America’s prisons will face only increasing difficulty in meeting the needs of elderly lifers