What is not reported in this article is that the COs really like the older guys because it's so much easier for them to control them - and to harass them. Like shooting fish in a pond. Also, there are inmates who are 80 years old or older who are not at Union CI. Robert York is one. Kay Lee
Posted on Mon, Jun. 21, 2004 FLORIDA
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Older inmates grouped in own prison
RAIFORD - Jimmie Lee Grant is a lanky grandfather slowed by a bad hip and the leaden weight of monotony. At 69, he doesn't look all that menacing.
But in some ways, he is the new, wrinkled face of Florida's prison system. Tough sentencing guidelines have swollen the ranks of felons 50 and older, many of them elderly and enfeebled.
Older inmates now have their own prison: Union Correctional in Raiford, where dentures are produced on site and in-house death notices go out daily. It is home to old-timers like Homer Comer, who sums up his physical healthy thusly: ``I've got everything wrong with me.''
Advocates of prison reform say Union is an example of the folly of keeping elderly prisoners behind bars until they die. They point to studies showing that older prisoners are unlikely to commit new crimes on their release.
But others, including Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, say criminals who grow old do not merit a get-out-of-jail-free card, especially those who committed brutal acts of violence. And many of these men did commit heinous crimes, some at a relatively mature age.
Grant, for instance, was convicted of murder in connection with a 1981 Duval County robbery. Truck driver Houston Price was shot three times in the head. Grant, who was in his mid-40s at the time of the crime, is serving life plus 214 years.
''I don't think he should get early release,'' Crist said. ``Houston will not get out of anything early, because of this defendant.''
Keeping these men locked up is not cheap. The cost of incarcerating senior citizens -- about $70,000 a year -- is three times that of caring for younger cons, experts say.
Many older prisoners, their bodies ravaged by years of smoking, drinking and drug abuse, enter the system in abysmal health only to deteriorate further from the lack of exercise, the starchy diet and the general boredom of prison life. They are, in many cases, older than their years.
Comer, a 67-year-old Lakeland migrant worker busted for drug dealing in 2001, is a good example. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. He was treated at a nearby hospital after suffering a series of heart attacks.
Bobby Doyle, a Raiford inmate like Comer and Grant, described his daily existence as ''watching towards death.'' The 67-year-old former dope-dealer and grandfather of two was sentenced to life in 1985 for killing a rival dealer in North Miami Beach. He knows he will never get out. In Florida, only convicts who received their life sentences before 1983 are eligible for parole.
''It kind of takes away your incentive,'' Doyle said. ``You become vegetative. One foot in front of the other.''
Fifteen years ago, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, founded The Project for Older Prisoners, or POPS, which encourages legislatures to release low-risk older inmates to help relieve crowding and improve prison conditions.
In place of incarceration, the organization advocates home confinement and electronic ankle bracelets for mid-risk geriatrics and believes high-risk prisoners should stay confined to geriatric units.
So far, POPS has helped secure the release of more than 200 older men -- but none in Florida.
Some states have taken the initiative in seeking alternatives to incarcerating old people. Maine has begun placing seriously ill, older prisoners in nursing homes, while Massachusetts has an assisted living unit. Oklahoma releases terminally ill prisoners with six months to live.
Florida confines old-timers at Raiford, where 800 of the 2,000 beds are for men 50 and older. It is similar in concept to River Junction Work Camp in Chattahoochee, where 370 of the 480 inmates are age 50 or older. Other special units within existing prisons are in the works, including an area for old convicts confined to wheelchairs at the Zephyrhills Correctional Institution.
In addition to curbing parole, the state has also passed 10-20-life laws cracking down on felons who use guns as well as ''three-strikes and you're out'' provisions -- part of a larger, national trend toward harsher sentences for habitual offenders.
Harsher sentences invariably result in more older prisoners.
The impact on Florida's prison population has been striking. In 1993, there were 2,604 inmates over age 50. A decade later, the number had jumped almost 200 percent to 7,691. the vast majority of them men.
There's no sign of a slowdown.
By 2015, there will be 16,989 50-and-older cons inside the state's prisons, the Florida Corrections Commission predicts.
As things now stand, these older prisoners account for a quarter of all hospital bills, according to the latest report from the nine-member, governor-appointed panel. Most of the more widespread ailments are also chronic in nature: hypertension, diabetes, alcoholism and emphysema. Mental illness is particularly rampant, affecting 15 to 25 percent of elderly inmates.
Some of Union's prisoners don't much like being grouped with their peers.
''I'd rather be around some young guys myself,'' said Russell Chaudoin Jr., 79, who claims he was framed for two murders in Lake County. ``These older men have no energy. ''
Indeed, the environment at Union Correctional, rededicated in February as a prison for older inmates, appears infused with malaise. There are few photos or personal effects inside the shared, 7 ½-by-5-foot cells. Arthritic men slowly push gray, soapy mops across silent hallways painted state beige. Outside, the grass lining the walkways is overgrown and seared yellow by the sun. Lawn maintenance is one of the jobs given to inmates.
Don Davis, UCI's assistant warden, said the population transformation at an old-folks prison is hard to miss.
''There are a lot less fights,'' Davis said. The prisoners, he added, are ``more settled and reserved.''
And there is less risk of escape than at a traditional prison, perhaps curbing the cost of securing the place.
''They are not going to throw their walkers over a razor wire fence,'' Turley said.
In theory, an inmate in the final stages of a terminal illness is eligible for compassionate release.
It doesn't always work out that way.
''By the time the parole commission processes their application they are dead,'' said Jonathan Fuller, executive director of the Florida Corrections Commission.
Jewell Grant remains hopeful, dreaming of a future where her husband, Jimmie Lee, spends his final days fishing for bass and whiting, raising tomatoes and mowing the lawn.
''I don't see what they are getting into when they have all these aches and pains,'' the Jacksonville woman said. ``I think when men get past 65 and they have not been in trouble they should release them. They are just making a nursing home.''