The 10 Best Observer Stories of 2016: ‘No Place for Old Men’
Texas prisons are filling up with the old and the ill — at enormous expense.
By Dick J. Reavis
Published February 15
The state of Texas operates 109 prisons holding about 148,000 inmates. Some 27,000 of them are, like Alonzo, over the age of 50. They account for about 18 percent of the prison population, and are the fastest-growing demographic group among prisoners. By most estimates, they are also the most expensive to keep under lock and key. According to TDCJ spokesman Robert Hurst, the average cost of housing Texas inmates is about $20,000 a year, but medical and end-of-life expenses hike that figure to some $30,000 for elderly inmates. In other jurisdictions, the cost is even higher. A 2012 report from the ACLU calculates the average national expense for keeping a prisoner at $34,000 per year — and twice that much, $68,000, for inmates older than 50.
Both demographic factors and get-tough sentencing have transformed what were once mere penal institutions into hospitals, assisted living centers and nursing homes, too. The University of Texas Medical Branch operates a freestanding hospital in Galveston for TDCJ, which also contracts with UTMB and the Texas Tech medical school to send prisoners to 146 community hospitals. Texas prisons now boast of “respiratory isolation rooms,” “brace and limb services” and hospice facilities in which 90 Texas inmates were eased into eternity last year. More than 300 inmates in Texas prisons use wheelchairs, Dr. Murray says.
You May Also Like
‘There Have to Be Limits’: Lawsuit Urges Scorching Prisons to Cool Down
New plaintiffs have expanded a 2023 lawsuit against TDCJ, accusing the agency of “cooking [prisoners] to death."
Texas Recruits High School Kids To Be Corrections Officers
Short on guards, the state hopes to attract students enrolled in corrections career training programs once they turn 18.
Texas Lawyers Violated Legal Ethics Over Expired Execution Drugs
An expert told the Observer that state’s attorneys “deceived the court by their silence” over supplies of lethal injection drugs.