'Buried alive': the old men stuck in Britain’s prisons | Hacker News Reader

'Buried alive': the old men stuck in Britain’s prisons

theguardian.com

36 pointsxwvvvvwx22 comments

The dementia argument is compelling; is a criminal missing all of the memories from his criminal past still a criminal? Punishment makes no sense when the punished doesn't understand what they're punished for.

As for the other elderly, although there is not much of a risk that these elderly prisoners will fall back to a life of crime, they are still there for a reason. One of the prisoners used as an example has been convicted of a sex attack he committed when he was 68. Another prisoner used as an example has committed several serious crimes, each worse than the last. He's been given multiple chances to better himself; he didn't, so he has to face the consequences.

We can hardly stop punishing criminals "because they're too old". The whole idea of a prison is that you get less freedom and luxuries than the people outside. Putting prisoners in a special home would give them the same (and for some people, even more) luxuries than the elderly outside the prison have.

> We can hardly stop punishing criminals "because they're too old".

Actually, here in Germany, that is possible. You can be "vollzugsuntauglich" which means being unable to be in prison. Mental sickness is one of the reasons. Others are not as clearly defined, but old age is a common one. (For those interested: §455 StPO, I didn't find an English translation with a quick search)

It depends where you fall on the issue of rehabilitation vs punishment.

Being inclined to utilitarianism, my personal view is that if a person isn't a risk to society any more, we probably shouldn't be using resources to prove a moral point.

Maybe house arrest would be a good compromise for elderly prisoners?

> rehabilitation vs punishment

There's also protection (which I think you allude to) and deterrent. If life no longer "means life", will that increase criminality because there is less of a deterrent?

I'm not taking any position on this; just pointing out that it should be considered in addition to rehabilitation, punishment and protection.

> If life no longer "means life", will that increase criminality because there is less of a deterrent?

For an answer to that, have a look into New Zealand's criminal law system. Life there means, I think, about 15 years.

There is a law that every business/office needs to be accessible for a wheelchair. Why prisons should be an exception?

Its really problematic, there is a special kind of dementia which - sort of rots the moral decision making part of the brain. There was a previos HN article on it.

So what do you do with a individual which is intellecutal highly capable, but completely unable to make a moral decision.

There is a positive way to look at it: overall prison population doesn't increase in the UK, and if the elderly make higher and high fraction of inmates, it suggests that younger people aren't as criminally inclined as the old generation.

more evidence for the lead poisoning theory?

Quite likely. While numerous explanations exist, none of which sounds intuitive.

Or there just aren't as many young people.

Or the police became less efficient over time (extreme model: all 20 year old criminals used to get caught, but now only 5% of them do) or prison sentences got longer over time (most criminals get less criminal as they get older. A simple model has only people under 50 getting prison sentences. If those all used to get sentenced to 10 years, but nowadays get sentenced to 20 years, the number of over 60 year old prisoners went up from zero)

My pet theory is all the young guys who used to get busted for things they did because they were bored are now sitting at home playing GTA.

See also this NYT piece about prisoners being carers for other prisoners with dementia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-dement...

The article doesn't mention family or other support systems for these people if they were released.

Let's say we release all these old people from prison as the article suggests. Where would they go? Do they have someone to take care of them?

It seems more reasonable that these people should be in the mental health system? Possibly committed?

Letting these people loose on the streets seems like the worst idea.

> Over the past decade, the police have recorded fewer crimes and the courts have prosecuted and convicted fewer defendants. But those who are found guilty of any crime – from burglary and fraud to sexual offences and murder – are more likely to get a prison sentence in Britain today than they were a decade ago.

... so that the workers in the Courts and Corrections industry can stay employed.

Some of these guys are child molesters. Those ones can rot for all I care.

Being British and having done a fair amount of security and crypto work, the word "nonce" still causes a mental double take. In one context, a number used once, in the other, well known British prison slang for a child molester.

Yeah Dropbox puts nonce in the URL when you auth with browser.

I wonder if anyone's pointed it out to them.

I used to work on the Product Security team at Dropbox

Then I guess the answer is yes :).

There are indeed people for whom rehabilitation is not possible. They will never be able to exist in society without causing damage. What then?

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