LONDON DIARY:The Prison Reform Trust in Britain has called for better care for elderly prisoners
PRISON LANDINGS are usually imagined, in the movies anyway, to be places for the violent and dangerous young, with the occasional presence of a wise old lag, seasoned by years inside.
In reality, British penal institutions are increasingly becoming grey. In the last year, five people aged over 81 died behind bars. Twenty-six who died were aged between 71 and 80.
A further 37 – more than a quarter of the death toll counted by the prisons and probation ombudsman between April 2011 and March 2012 – were over 60.
“Prisoners aged 60 and over are now the fastest-growing age group in the prison estate and this number rose 128 per cent between 2000 and 2010,” the ombudsman says in his recent annual report.
Younger prisoners are increasingly employed to care for older inmates, although the Prison Reform Trust last year called for more training for those doing such work.
One carer, who had looked after his parents before he was jailed, told the ombudsman of his difficulties in coping with a similar role in prison.
Left without formal qualifications, he was “expected to shower Mr J and often had to clear up his incontinence, amongst other difficult duties”, the report recounts.
Although elderly care in prisons has improved, often older prisoners have to be sent to hospitals – requiring prison authorities to decide on the level of security to be employed.
Despite calling for a review last year, the ombudsman complains that it continues to investigate deaths where elderly prisons were left handcuffed or chained, even when deemed to be low escape risks.
One prisoner needed crutches to get about. However, prison wardens employed double handcuffs, leaving the prisoner unable to use his crutches, thus unable to get to his appointment with doctors.
“Often, there is too much reliance on the static risk suggested by the original offence even though there has been substantial change since,” the ombudsman says.
Frequently, prisoners are restrained until just hours before death, even in cases where the individual has been deemed to be of no risk to the public, even if he was one in healthier days.
Two years ago, the Prison Reform Trust, which campaigns for better conditions for prisoners, claimed prison authorities were failing to do enough to meet the health needs of inmates.
Quoting 2008 figures, which have only increased since, the trust reported that nearly 7,000 men and women aged over 50 were behind bars.
The number of those over 60 – deemed old because the health of prisoners is generally worse than those outside – had grown from 699 in 1996 to 2,242 in 2008. Nearly 500 then were over 70.
Responsibility for healthcare in prisons was transferred to the National Health Service in 2006, but few prison staff seem to be aware of who is in charge.
Many older prisons were never designed to cope with the elderly, creating predictable but hard-to- deal-with problems, particularly for those with wheelchairs.
“I can’t get my wheelchair through the door of my room and I have to try and get from the entrance to my bed,” one said. “When it’s mealtime, someone has to collect my food and bring it to me.”
Some of the problems of the elderly anywhere are exacerbated by life in jail, particularly incontinence and the need for speedy availability of toilets for those in need.
“I have bladder trouble especially at night and I often wet my clothes and bedding,” another told the trust. “I am very embarrassed about this and don’t want to be a nuisance. When I mentioned this to my officer he laughed and said that we all have problems like that as we get older – but now I’m wetting myself in the daytime.
“I can’t get to the toilet quick enough in the education class because it is locked. Now some of the younger men and officers are teasing me about my body smell and the stench in my cell.”
Older prisoners, by their nature, often have older relations outside. “Older prisoners should be provided with extended visits for elderly visitors who cannot visit often,” argues the trust.
If life in jail for the elderly is difficult, then the fact that so many now serving sentences are pensioners creates a new set of problems for the day when they finally get out. Faced with news that a prisoner has but a short time to live, prison authorities often struggle to judge the correct time to send them to hospital or put them up for compassionate release.
In one case, the trust recounted testimony from a prisoner about the life and death of prisoner X who was told that he had terminal cancer and had just weeks to live.
“We all loved X on this wing – even the screws got on well with him . . . He was quiet and kind to everyone especially the new ones and any who felt low or suicidal,” he said.
Medical staff prepared to send him to hospital, but the authorities vetoed the move.
“We sat with him in his cell when we could and helped him to move and the nurse kept popping in to see him.
“She was upset that he had to stay there. He wasn’t allowed any morphine to kill his pain and died a few days later in agony in his cell and all alone.”
