Care home jails on the way for older prisoners
(Including garden allotments and stair lifts for less mobile inmates)
CARE homes would be installed in Scotland’s prisons under radical plans to address a huge increase in the number of elderly inmates.
The number of people over the age of 50 in Scottish jails has nearly doubled in just over a decade.
Now prison chiefs are preparing a strategy to deal with the needs of pensioner inmates.
Among the plans being considered is creating care home-style facilities within prisons or even building a dedicated standalone prison offering round-the-clock care.
It could even lead to stair lifts being installed in jails – and areas being set aside for dedicated ‘purposeful activity’ such as maintaining allotments.
There are now 746 inmates over the age of 50 – a 93 per cent increase compared to 387 in 2001.
The rise has been attributed to people living longer and a surge in the number of ‘historic’ sex allegations being reported in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: ‘Increasing numbers of people who are more elderly and
‘Stairs and walking are common problems’
have acute health needs could lead to us needing to look at our facilities.
‘All jails have cells adapted for people with disabilities, so it may be that we are required to look at that for elderly people too.’
Asked how prisons could be adapted, he said: ‘Whether it is specialist secure facilities or adapting existing facilities, that would be the decision that would have to be reached, and that is on the horizon.’
A new report by David Strang, the Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, said an ageing prison population was a growing problem that provides ‘particular challenges’ when prisoners have increasing levels of disability and dementia and have high health and care needs.
The Scottish Government confirmed that a strategy is to be developed to deal with the problem – but said that it was an operational matter for the Scottish Prison Service.
Some prisons in England have made a series of changes, including building allotments and installing stair lifts and more benches.
Prison Reform Trust director Juliet Lyon said: ‘Imprisonment for many old, disabled people can amount to a double punishment.
‘Thirty six per cent of older prisoners in Scotland report having a disability and 46 per cent report having a long-term illness. Solutions may well not lie in adapting unsuitable prison accommodation but in secure homes for the elderly, family and community support.’
The over-50 age group is the fastest-growing in Scotland’s prisons – and now accounts for nearly one in ten of all inmates.
A new paper by Dr Sarah Couper, specialist registrar in public health medicine at NHS Forth Valley, and Dr Andrew Fraser, director of public health science at NHS Health Scotland, said that ‘options now need to be debated’ for providing care for ‘frail prisoners’.
It went on: ‘The physical infrastructure of some prisons creates access problems for some prisoners. Stairs and walking are two of the most common problems.’
An Age Scotland spokesman said older prisoners should be held in jails that ‘meet their basic needs’.
Among Scotland’s notorious elderly convicts is Peter Tobin, 68, who is serving a life sentence in Saughton for the murder of three young women – Angelika Kluk, Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol.
Tory justice spokesman Margaret Mitchell said: ‘An older prisoner will be just as deserving of their sentence as younger ones.’