"If the Risk Is Low, Let Them Go": Elderly Prison Population Skyrockets Despite Low Risk to Society
December 23, 2013
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5:41Now Playing"If the Risk Is Low, Let Them Go": Elderly Prison Population Skyrockets Despite Low Risk to Society
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as posted by the channelEven amidst a modest reduction in the U.S. prison population, the number of aging men and women expected to die behind bars has skyrocketed in a system ill prepared to handle them and still oriented towards mass incarceration. We speak about the problems facing aging prisoners with Mujahid Farid, who was released from a New York state prison in 2011 after serving 33 years. He is now lead organizer with RAPP, which stands for "Release Aging People in Prison." Their slogan is "If the risk is low, let them go." His campaign work is part of Soros Justice Fellowship and is housed at the Correctional Association of New York. We are also joined by Soffiyah Elijah, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, which monitors conditions in state prisons. "The parole board routinely denies people based on the nature of the offense, the one thing that no one can change, just like we can't change our height or our eye color," Elijah notes. "We need to look at that and say, if someone presents a low risk to recidivate, then we should be releasing them from prison. We're wasting precious taxpayer dollars incarcerating people, and it's much more expensive to incarcerate people who are older."
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