OTTAWA – The federal prison ombudsman says Canada’s inmates are growing old in institutions ill-equipped to meet their changing needs. Correctional investigator Howard Sapers says jails were not designed to assist prisoners with physical disabilities and those in need of palliative care.
We take a look at Canada’s aging inmates by the numbers:
Number of offenders serving a federal sentence: 22,963
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Proportion of inmates 50 years of age and older: 1 in 4
Number of aging offenders: 2,900 or 19 per cent of the total population
The increase in aging offenders: 50 per cent in the last decade
Region with the highest number of aging offenders: Quebec with 26 per cent
Region with the lowest number of aging offenders: The Prairies with 11 per cent
Location of aging offenders: The majority are serving sentences at minimum or medium security institutions or a regional treatment centre.
Common causes of death in Canadian custody: Cardiovascular illness (36 per cent), Cancer (33 per cent), respiratory problems (14 per cent) and infectious disease (7 per cent), the first three of which are more common in aging populations.
Average age of federal prisons: 47 years-old, although 5 of the 57 federal penitentiaries are over 100 years old, meaning they don’t always have the infrastructure needed by senior citizens.
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