
'Buried alive': the old men stuck in Britain’s prisons - xwvvvvwx
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jun/20/buried-alive-the-old-men-stuck-in-britains-prisons
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jeroenhd
The dementia argument is compelling; is a criminal missing all of the memories
from his criminal past still a criminal? Punishment makes no sense when the
punished doesn't understand what they're punished for.

As for the other elderly, although there is not much of a risk that these
elderly prisoners will fall back to a life of crime, they are still there for
a reason. One of the prisoners used as an example has been convicted of a sex
attack he committed when he was 68. Another prisoner used as an example has
committed several serious crimes, each worse than the last. He's been given
multiple chances to better himself; he didn't, so he has to face the
consequences.

We can hardly stop punishing criminals "because they're too old". The whole
idea of a prison is that you get less freedom and luxuries than the people
outside. Putting prisoners in a special home would give them the same (and for
some people, even more) luxuries than the elderly outside the prison have.

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biofox
It depends where you fall on the issue of rehabilitation vs punishment.

Being inclined to utilitarianism, my personal view is that if a person isn't a
risk to society any more, we probably shouldn't be using resources to prove a
moral point.

Maybe house arrest would be a good compromise for elderly prisoners?

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rlpb
> rehabilitation vs punishment

There's also protection (which I think you allude to) and deterrent. If life
no longer "means life", will that increase criminality because there is less
of a deterrent?

I'm not taking any position on this; just pointing out that it should be
considered in addition to rehabilitation, punishment and protection.

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dvtv75
> If life no longer "means life", will that increase criminality because there
> is less of a deterrent?

For an answer to that, have a look into New Zealand's criminal law system.
Life there means, I think, about 15 years.

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anovikov
There is a positive way to look at it: overall prison population doesn't
increase in the UK, and if the elderly make higher and high fraction of
inmates, it suggests that younger people aren't as criminally inclined as the
old generation.

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gozur88
Or there just aren't as many young people.

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Someone
Or the police became less efficient over time (extreme model: all 20 year old
criminals used to get caught, but now only 5% of them do) or prison sentences
got longer over time (most criminals get less criminal as they get older. A
simple model has only people under 50 getting prison sentences. If those all
used to get sentenced to 10 years, but nowadays get sentenced to 20 years, the
number of over 60 year old prisoners went up from zero)

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gozur88
My pet theory is all the young guys who used to get busted for things they did
because they were bored are now sitting at home playing GTA.

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DanBC
See also this NYT piece about prisoners being carers for other prisoners with
dementia.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-
dement...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-dementia-
among-aging-criminals.html?_r=1)

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cbanek
The article doesn't mention family or other support systems for these people
if they were released.

Let's say we release all these old people from prison as the article suggests.
Where would they go? Do they have someone to take care of them?

It seems more reasonable that these people should be in the mental health
system? Possibly committed?

Letting these people loose on the streets seems like the worst idea.

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vorg
> Over the past decade, the police have recorded fewer crimes and the courts
> have prosecuted and convicted fewer defendants. But those who are found
> guilty of any crime – from burglary and fraud to sexual offences and murder
> – are more likely to get a prison sentence in Britain today than they were a
> decade ago.

... so that the workers in the Courts and Corrections industry can stay
employed.

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1ba9115454
Some of these guys are child molesters. Those ones can rot for all I care.

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pacaro
Being British and having done a fair amount of security and crypto work, the
word "nonce" still causes a mental double take. In one context, _a number used
once_ , in the other, well known British prison slang for a child molester.

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noir_lord
Yeah Dropbox puts nonce in the URL when you auth with browser.

I wonder if anyone's pointed it out to them.

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pacaro
I used to work on the Product Security team at Dropbox

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noir_lord
Then I guess the answer is yes :).

