Keeping older and sick people in prison costs a great deal, and it does little for public safety. Elderly prisoners cost at least twice as much to hold as younger ones, yet people released through compassionate release reoffend at a rate of just 3.5 percent. This page walks through the numbers.
Why compassionate release is needed
When someone is sentenced to prison, the judge sentences the person as they are at that moment. But over time, a prisoner’s life changes. People grow older, their health gets worse, and their family situations change. All of this leads to large elderly and medical costs.
There is a human side to compassionate release. But by law, the Bureau of Prisons may only reduce a sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons. At the time this article was written, those reasons were generally split into three groups: medical, non-medical, and elderly.
This article looks at the data on how many elderly federal prisoners there are and what it costs to house them. It also looks at the large costs the Bureau of Prisons pays to give medical care to older prisoners and others.
How many elderly prisoners there are, and what they cost
In 1981, according to the ACLU, there were about 9,000 state and federal prisoners aged 55 and older. The same study estimated that this number would rise to over 400,000 by 2030.
Between 1999 and 
2013, the number of state and federal prisoners aged 55 and older grew 234 percent, from 43,000 to 144,500.
Keeping older people in prison is expensive. According to the National Institute of Corrections, prisons spend at least twice as much to hold an elderly prisoner as a younger one. Researchers estimate that elderly prisoners cost between $60,000 and $70,000 per year. The higher cost comes from their much greater health care needs.
As the number of older prisoners has grown, most states and the federal government have created compassionate release or geriatric release programs. These programs allow some prisoners to be released early if they meet certain rules.
Usually, the prisoner must have either a chronic and debilitating illness or a terminal illness. Sometimes other extraordinary and compelling situations allow for release, such as the death or incapacitation of a child’s caregiver or the incapacitation of a spouse.
Forty-five states and the federal government have some form of compassionate release or geriatric release program. Sadly, compassionate release is rarely used. The reasons include politics, public opinion, narrow eligibility rules, and long, complicated steps that often leave the elderly prisoner dead in prison before final approval.
These costs make the point clear. If older prisoners rarely reoffend and cost so much to hold, why keep them in prison for so long?
The cost of medical care in prison
Compassionate release programs make a lot of sense. They save taxpayers money. The DOJ estimated that the average cost of a prisoner was $28,893 in 2013, while the average cost of a prisoner held in a federal medical center was $57,962.
Just as important, these programs do not make the public less safe. According to the DOJ Office of Inspector General, released prisoners over age 55 have a 15 percent recidivism rate (the rate of committing new crimes), compared with 41 percent for all released prisoners. Prisoners granted compassionate release reoffend at a rate of only 3.5 percent.
The need for strong compassionate release programs is even clearer when you look at two facts about crime and prison today. As prisoners age, their risk of crime goes down, but their health gets much worse. Criminologist and scholar Jonathan Simon summed up this problem in his 2014 book Mass Incarceration on Trial:
“Prisoners do have life stages; their bodies age. They change and often mature. When this happens largely in prison (or in and out of prison), the change is mostly for the worse, especially in terms of health. Chronic illnesses get worse if one is prevented from trying to make them better. Prison makes them much, much worse. For almost all adults, the crime and illness curves run inversely; the risk of crime starts high and ends up low, while the risk of illness starts off low . . . and ends up high.”
Why compassionate release is common sense
Compassionate release programs are an important and needed part of a fair criminal justice system. State legislatures and Congress should expand them so their benefits, both human and financial, can be realized.
As the numbers above show, releasing elderly and very sick prisoners does not make the public less safe. What it does reduce is the huge cost of keeping them in prison. That is something everyone can support, out of common sense if not compassion.
If you want help with a compassionate release request, book a consultation.