Soaring numbers of older, sicker prisoners are causing an unprecedented health care challenge for the nation's criminal justice system, according to a new UCSF report.
As the American penal system confronts a costly demographic shift toward older prisoners, the authors call for an overhaul in health care practices for elderly inmates who disproportionately account for escalating medical expenses behind bars. The recommendations include screening for dementia among prisoners, improved palliative care, and standard policies for geriatric housing units for infirm inmates.
The article will be published online June 14, 2012, in the American Journal of Public Health.
The report outlines nine policy recommendations that emerged from a gathering last year of 29 national experts in prison health care, academic medicine, nursing and civil rights.
The recommendations promote cost-effective quality care for older prisoners, said lead author Brie Williams, MD, a UCSF associate professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics.
"A first step is to focus on these nine priority areas in order to set the stage for collaboration among the many disciplines involved in older prisoner health care," Williams said.
From 2000 to 2009, the country's prison population grew by 16 percent, and the number of older prisoners - 55 years or older - increased nearly 80 percent.
As a result, prisons are increasingly challenged to provide care to older inmates with a litany of chronic medical conditions including diabetes, heart failure, cognitive impairment and end-stage liver disease. Many older inmates also suffer from infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C. With higher rates of disability in general, older prisoners cost approximately two to three times as much as younger inmates.
"Prisoners have a right to timely access to an appropriate level of care for serious medical needs,'' the authors said in the report. "Yet criminal justice health care systems are underprepared to provide cost-effective quality care for older adults.''
The recommendations include:
•Institute a standard definition of geriatric or older prisoners - the experts suggest age 55 or older;
•Improve training of prison staff and health care providers;
•Provide screening for dementia;
•Identify health needs of older women prisoners;
•Create national medical eligibility criteria for early prisoner release based on medical needs;
•Establish uniform policies for geriatric housing units.