CEPAR Research Fellow Dr Natasha Ginnivan recently provided a submission on the ageing prisoner population to the United Nations (UN) Independent Expert on the Rights of Older Persons, for the forthcoming report to the Human Rights Council in 2022 on older persons deprived of their liberty.
At the online consultation in March, Dr Ginnivan informed the UN Independent Expert on the Human Rights of Older Persons, Dr Claudia Mahler, about the demographic shifts and the cost and social implications of the rising health-care needs of the ageing prisoner population in Australia, based on her recent study published with colleagues in the International Journal of Prisoner Health.
Dr Ginnivan highlighted that "despite a 2015 Prison health directors national roundtable report showing that ageing prisoners were the fourth highest priority of significant issues to be addressed, little has been done to mobilise and fund the necessary services to manage this growing crisis."
“There is a concern that notwithstanding the human rights issues of vulnerable prisoners not being provided age-appropriate care, that prison health care costs will impact the overall custodial system,” said Dr Ginnivan.
“In addition, the fastest growing older prisoner group in Australia are women over sixty years of age, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, who are being incarcerated at much higher rates and have special needs beyond what the system can provide.
“Taking into consideration the continued rise in incarceration rates, the calculations from our 2021 paper show that the health costs of prisoners could increase by anywhere between 17% and 90% depending on whether the increase of older prisoners continues as it has in the past decade,” she said.
According to the paper by Dr Ginnivan and colleagues, these trends are likely to continue over the next decade and will result in much higher health costs for prisons under a number of different imprisonment scenarios.
“Policy responses in Australia have been slow so far, with most age-appropriate initiatives being undertaken in the USA with promising results,” said Dr Ginnivan.
“In our study we find that in the absence of a coordinated policy response, covering a range of interventions, costs will continue to increase, particularly as this population continues to age more rapidly than the general population due to an accumulation of risk factors.
“Well-conceived interventions would be a worthwhile investment from both financial and social and human rights perspective,” said Dr Ginnivan.
Ginnivan, N.A., Chomik, R., Hwang, Y.I.(J)., Piggott, J., Butler, T. and Withall, A. (2021), The Ageing Prisoner Population: Demographic Shifts in Australia and Implications for the Economic and Social Costs of Health Care, International Journal of Prisoner Health.