Pensioners in prison.

• Author: Davison, Charles B.
• Position: Feature Report on Older Adults and the Law

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One of the challenges presently facing Canada's correctional system is how best to respond to the aging populations inside our penitentiaries and other penal institutions. As is the case with outside society, the advancing age of inmates is presenting new problems for and demands upon those responsible for operating our correctional facilities.

There are a number of reasons for the growing numbers of elderly prisoners in Canada. In general, our society is getting older, as the "baby boomer" generation reaches late/middle and early/old age. While many social scientists suggest this will actually mean a reduction in crime rates (as the "boomers" move past the ages when most criminal activity is committed), as the average age of Canadians increases, the number of elderly persons entering prisons and penitentiaries may also be expected to rise. Indeed, between 1993 and 2004, the number of elderly inmates (over 50) in Canadian penitentiaries rose from 8% to 14% of the total prison population.

In addition, changes in our laws are leading to more offenders being held for longer periods in custody. The first significant change actually took place in 1976, when Parliament abolished the death penalty for murder and substituted in its place sentences of life imprisonment. While persons convicted of murder do eventually become eligible for parole (after at least 10 years for second-degree murder and after 25 years for first-degree murder), the fact remains that they are under sentence for the rest of their lives. This can and sometimes does mean that they remain imprisoned well into their elderly years.

Furthermore, although the government attempted, during the late 1990s and early in the present decade, to reduce the use of imprisonment in Canada, the current government in Ottawa is clearly dedicated to reversing that trend, and seeks to increase the number of prisoners in our jails and penitentiaries. As of the date of writing (November 2006), the Conservative Government has proposed a so-called "three strikes" law. Anyone convicted of two previous serious violent or sexual offences who has received sentences of imprisonment for two years or more will, on their third such conviction, be deemed to be a dangerous offender and imprisoned indefinitely, unless he or she can convince a court that this should not be the result of the proceedings. Our correctional facilities already hold around 320 dangerous offenders serving...