Will prisons become 'welfare homes' for pensioners?
By Jayne Warren - 18/01/2008
It may sound bizarre, but in Japan, people aged 65 and older now make up the fastest-growing group of criminals - most of whom are non violent and have turned to crime out of poverty and isolation. With a rapidly aging population, breakdown in traditional family and community ties and nowhere else to go, many elderly Japanese make up their minds to go to prison where life is safer and easier - and all it takes a a bit of shoplifting to get there.
From 2000 to 2006, the number of older criminals soared by 160%, to 46,637, from 17,942, according to Japan’s National Police Agency. Shoplifting accounted for 54% of the total in 2006 and petty theft for 23%. As a result, prisons are being forced to adapt their environments and regimes to a population that is often physically and mentally confused.
For example, older convicts are exempted from marching in formation in some prisons, and in western Japan, Onomichi Prison has provided a small facility with a special ward for older inmates, who make up 22% of the prison’s population
Takashi Hayashi, vice director of Onomichi Prison said: “There are some elderly prisoners who are afraid of going back into society. If they stay in prison, everything’s taken care of. There are examples of elderly who’ve left prison, used up what money they had, then were arrested after shoplifting at a convenience store. They’d made up their minds to go back to prison.”
The ward for older inmates at Onomichi was built in the mid-1980s, long before the boom in the older population, and since then, officials have tried to handle the flood of older prisoners. For example, adjustable chairs were brought into the workroom two years ago, and names were added below inmates’ identification numbers in locker rooms - as they tended to forget. Prescription drugs, wheeled walkers and a stretcher are also kept on hand, as well as a box of “discreet, underwearlike” adult diapers. A handrail runs through the middle of the corridor in the residential wing. “Hard of hearing,” reads a sign on one door, and on another, leading to the cell of an inmate with dementia, is a sign instructing prison workers to give him medication before every meal “even if he did not request it.”
A 71-year-old inmate, a first-time offender, said: “It sounds strange, but we’re all old folks in here. I’m old, too, and we’re all pretty quiet.”
Mr. Hayashi described a “vicious circle” that often sends older people back to prison: Once outside, they cannot find work; without work or a guarantor, they cannot rent an apartment. “This is not a society that lets them stand on their own two feet,” he said. Sounds familiar?
Welfare benefits are difficult to obtain, nursing homes are scarce, so prison life (which means spotless surroundings largely free of violence) may seem appealing. In other words, prisons are becoming a sort of social welfare facility for the elderly.
Might this be a future vision for the UK? I hope not. But a number of MT readers have written in to say how life in prison is 'far too comfortable' for offenders - providing no incentive to leave.
So I wonder ...