Are we doing enough to help the thousands of elderly prisoners released each year blend back into society and modern day life once they have paid their dues? One former prisoner named Otis Johnson would certainly disagree.
Otis Johnson was imprisoned for 44 years for the attempted murder of a police officer. He was sent away when he was just 25 and released when he was 69. When you are locked away for such a long period, with no real connection to the outside world, you don’t realize just how much can change. For Otis, this meant he had to adjust to a whole new way of life without any real help at all.
Being imprisoned for a long time, Otis lost touch with his family in around 1998. With no one to keep him updated as to what was going on in the world around him, he lost touch, and when he came to be released, he found it difficult to settle in and accept things as they now were. The small things that we take for granted, such as mobile phones and the internet, were a complete shock to Otis and having to comprehend the hike in the cost of everything was also hard to comprehend.
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According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 3,900 elderly inmates released from prison in 2013 after serving a minimum of 20 years and the rise in elderly prisoners rocketed by 250 percent from 1999-2015. This poses a problem for the justice department as both the housing and feeding of the elderly population is a costly expenditure.
However, there is hope on the horizon for some as new sentencing guidelines are being introduced which could mean early release for over 40,000 prisoners, with elderly inmates potentially being the next wave.
But, with this freedom comes a price, and that is the price of having to reintegrate back into society. The needs of elderly prisoners are that much greater than those of the younger generation as they are much more adaptable to new situations and find it easier to blend back in. They tend to suffer more with mental health issues and finding ways to cope than those a younger age, and the lack of resources and help available to them is insufficient according to many prisoners who have served decades behind bars.
Having to go from everything being decided for you – from when and what you eat, to what time to you get up to then having the freedom and choice to do almost anything is harder than one can imagine unless you have been there. Hopefully, with the new reforms underway, more help will be given to those separated from society for so long to help them reintegrate and give them a chance to enjoy a peaceful, happy life.
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