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...and, inexplicably, things get expensive when time does pass for people condemned to die in prison:
Gray heads cost more than $70,000. Taxpayers pick up the bill for wheelchairs, hearing aids, eye glasses. A fourth of all sick calls among Florida's 100,000 state prisoners are generated by old folks. That percentage of the prison population accounts for a third of the chronic diseases, a third of the hospitalizations and 40 percent of the surgeries. They consume a fourth of the pharmaceuticals.
Think things will get better?
Not before they get worse:
The numbers will only escalate. By 2030, a third of state prisoners will be of the elderly kind. The state prison system, saddled with so many mandatory life sentences, is evolving into a very expensive nursing home.
The funny (to me!) part of this is that I'm sure 27% of the population at large would simply take any and all healthcare away from the prison system.
'Cuz that's progress!!
