The Senior Inmate

I was reading some older post and I saw a blog about the elderly in the jail/prison system. This caught my attention being that I work in a county jail. I now work in the medical department but before that I was an officer for 7 1/2 yrs so I have seen a lot of older people with so many issues come and go over the years. I cannot tell you the amount of grannies I have seen come in with oxygen tanks in tow! Or the amount of grand pops with serious heart conditions. Me being a healthy younger person would not want to stay in jail so I know it has to be worse for the elderly population that is there...no Ombudsman program there! Just thinking of the things the representative spoke about is an eye opener. Breakfast is served between 4:30am & 6:00am; what if that person is not a morning person? Answer: He/She won't eat. Then I was thinking about how modest most elderly people are, well that is going to have to be put on pause during their stay. There is little to no privacy there. If an inmate has to use the bathroom and he/she has a roommate it has to be done in front of that person, there is no stepping out of the cell. Also the shower door is like a half door so there is no shower curtain or anything that will cover their entire body. That is ok for men, but for woman?! I know I would be soooo uncomfortable. And the housing units are over crowded is just the icing on the cake. At anytime there could be 5-7 females sleeping on a matt on the floor of the multi-purpose room because all of the regular cells are full. No wonder there are reports stating that the elderly are at high risk for committing suicide while being locked up. There are also reports stating the elderly is the fastest rising inmate population. Jail is no place to be for the young or the old, but for some reason it is filled to capacity with our cute, sweet lil elders! I have a CNN article with lots of facts & numbers regarding the elderly in jail/prison. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-11-13/justice/aging.inmates_1_prison-inmate-largest-prison-systems-medical-costs?_s=PM:CRIME