First Reading

              ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH UNIT
Volume 21, No. 3
Summary of Laws & Constitutional Provisions Affecting Older Prisoners ..................................5
State Programs for Older, Ill, or Long- Term Prisoners............................................................13
Biographies of New Senators...............................15
Abstracts of reports required to be
filed with General Assembly............................16
Inside this Issue
National Prison Population Reflects Aging Trends
States have been faced with an increasing number of older prisoners in recent years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 5.3% of the estimated 1.5 mil­lion state or federal prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year were 55 or older at the end of 2006, up from 3.3% in 1999; 15.5% were aged 45 to 54, up from 10.4% in 1999.
From 1999 to 2006, nationally the number of prisoners 55 or older grew about 85.2%, and those 45 to 54 years old grew 72.6%. Taken together, they represent 67.4% of the total growth in prisoners during that time.
The increase is due to several factors, such as aging of the general population, Baby Boomers reaching middle age, and stricter sentencing laws of the 1980s and 1990s.
Older prisoners typically need more health care and spe­cial accommodations, which can strain corrections bud­gets. The Council of State Governments has reported the annual cost of housing an older prisoner at about $67,000, versus $22,000 for a younger prisoner.
Many states have responded with special housing and programs for older prisoners, and early release or medi­cal parole opportunities. This article provides data on the growth of the older prisoner population in Illinois and clemency and parole provisions here. Then it looks at the 18 states in the Legislative Research Unit’s standard mul­tistate survey list—the 10 most populous states other than Illinois; neighboring states; and regional representatives (Arizona, Cali­fornia, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virgin­ia, Washington, and Wis­consin) to show how they address clemency, parole, parole or release for medical reasons or age, and housing and programs for older or ill prisoners.
Prison Population Aging Trends in Illinois
The number and percent of older (age 41 or over) prison­ers is growing among the Illinois prison population. As shown in Table 1 on the next page, the number of prison­ers has grown by only 832 from 44,355 in FY 1999 to 45,187 in FY 2008. But while the number and percent of prisoners aged 40 or under has declined, those 41-50 now make up 21.1% of the population, an increase of 3,164 (6.7%), and those 51 or older are 8.7%, an increase of 2,230 (4.9%).
These numbers include 1,618 prisoners who are serving life or death sentences—550 who are 41 to 50 and 450 who are 51 or over.
April 2008
(continued on p. 2)
Sen. Tim Bivins
Sen. Heather Steans