PRISONS are not places for the elderly. They are better suited to the young and streetwise. Some elderly prisoners fit the latter description, having spent considerable periods of time in prison by the time they reach their sixties. Others will be behind bars for the first time.
But either way, jails are not well equipped to deal with an older population. Neither modern jails nor some of our remaining Victorian institutions, were designed with the needs of people with dementia, or mobility or continence problems in mind. Staff have mostly not been trained to provide social care let alone support for those with dementia.
David Strang’s latest report points out that there are prisoners with diseases such as Alzheimers, but we don’t know how many. “It is likely to be under-diagnosed, because the routine of prison life can help disguise it,” he says.
This, and some of the other indignities endured by elderly prisoners might be causing more concern, but for a lingering willingness on the part of the public to look the other way when it comes to conditions in prisons - or to accept instead the narrative that prisons are too soft. There is also a reason why the public may be less sympathetic over the issues highlighted in Mr Strang’s latest report. One significant contributor to the rising elderly population in our prisons is the relatively recent rush of historic child abuse cases investigated by agencies and prosecuted in the courts.
But antipathy to sex offenders is not a reason to abandon decency in prisons, Mr Strang says. By no means all older prisoners are convicted of such offences, but in any case prisons have a duty to provide for their needs. “No matter what people are convicted of, they still need to be held in decent conditions.”
Some health and social care partnerships do operate a service in local jails but it is not easy. One option would be to set up secure community-based units, better equipped to meet the needs of this cohort of prisoners. However Mr Strang says such ‘prison care homes’ would not be welcomed by older prisoners, who value the interactions they have with inmates of a range of ages.
The solutions are not obvious, but the SPS, certainly, are not in a position to ignore this problem.
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