Prisons and the Pandemic
Elderly, locked up, and at risk — the life and death of the incarcerated during Covid
Elderly, locked up, and at risk in the time of Covid.
Cynthia Carter young thought of Leonard Carter as her “big little brother.” He was younger than her, but so protective that he was more like the older sibling. “He always wanted to look out for other people,” she says. Last spring, she was looking forward to seeing him again. After almost 25 years in prison, Leonard, 60, had been paroled and had only weeks left to go until his release. But on April 14th, Cynthia got a dreaded call from a No Caller ID number. “I said ‘Oh, no,’ and picked up.” Leonard had died from Covid-19. “If he’d lived, he would have had a chance to see his grandchild for the first time,” she says. “What he wanted to do most was hug his grandchild.”
Almost 200,000 people over 55 are in prison in the U.S., according to Bureau of Justice data from 2017. Thanks to tough-on-crime laws like mandatory minimums and stringent parole boards, the number of older incarcerated people jumped 282 percent between 1995 and 2010. Elderly prisoners are arguably the most vulnerable population to the ravages of Covid, yet efforts to release them through compassionate release or home confinement have been halting at best. “So many of us have lived in fear for our elderly loved ones this year, but it’s so much worse for those with family in prison,” says photographer Natalie Keyssar, who spent six months documenting elderly prisoners and their families in New York state. “They have no way to stay safe while incarcerated.”
Many elderly prisoners are still locked up because they were convicted of serious crimes, which makes them ineligible for home confinement during Covid. But the recidivism rate for seniors is extremely low — as little as three percent, per one study — and the cost of caring for them in prison is much higher than the risk that they will be a danger to society. Leonard hoped to mentor former inmates through a nonprofit when he got out, says Cynthia. But he never got the chance. “He was granted parole after serving 25 years,” Cynthia says, “and along came Covid-19.”