As New York State develops its Master Plan for Aging, legislators are requesting that the plan include a directive supporting the Elder Parole and Fair and Timely Parole bills. These measures would allow people over 55 who have served at least 15 years of their sentences to be considered for parole and would reform the Parole Board to consider people’s parole requests based on the current risk they present.
As Brookdale executive director Ruth Finkelstein told Amanda D’Ambrosio for Crain’s New York Business, addressing the health crisis of aging prisoners in this way would be a “win-win-win.”
Almost 8,000 adults age 50 and older are in New York State prisons. People in their 50s who are behind bars exhibit disability and health conditions at a rate equal to community-dwelling people in their 70s and 80s, and many chronic conditions go untreated.
Read the Crain’s story here.
Read our fact sheet about elder parole.
