Aging in Correctional Custody: Setting a Policy Agenda for Older Prisoner Health Care

An exponential rise in the number of older prisoners is creating new and costly challenges for the criminal justice system, state economies, and communities to which older former prisoners return. We convened a meeting of 29 national experts in correctional health care, academic medicine, nursing, and civil rights to identify knowledge gaps and to propose a policy agenda to improve the care of older prisoners' (p. 1475). Priority areas identified through consensus of the roundtable participants are: define the older prisoner; train staff and health care providers; define functional impairment among prisoners; screen for dementia; identify needs of older female prisoners; create uniform policies for geriatric housing units; identify release and reentry challenges for older adults; improve medical release policies; and enhance prison palliative care programs.