The High Costs of Low Risk: The Crisis of America’s Aging Prison Population

The population of a prison system is a function of the number of people who enter and how long they stay. Although crime rates are lower than they were 10 years ago, and thirty-six states have reduced their imprisonment rates, extreme sentence lengths and narrow release mechanisms have led to a growing crisis of older adults in America’s prisons. By 2030, the population of people aged 50 and older is projected to account for one-third of all incarcerated people in the U.S., amounting to a staggering 4,400 percent increase over a fifty-year span. Addressing this crisis is perhaps one of the most salient and pressing challenges facing corrections administrators—and therefore, states and taxpayers—over the next 20 years.