New York state granted parole to Westil Gonzalez, who suffered from multiple sclerosis after serving 33 years in prison for murder. Six months have passed and Gonzalez, 57, is still incarcerated outside Buffalo, because the Department of Corrections has not found a nursing home that will accept him. Another New York inmate has been in the same limbo for 20 months. Others were released only after suing the state, the New York Times reports. The elderly prison population is rising as more people serve long sentences for violent crimes. Nearly 16 percent of prisoners were over 55 in 2022, up from 5 percent in 2007. The share of prisoners over 65 quadrupled to about 4 percent. Costly medical conditions require more nursing care, both in prison and after an inmate’s release. Prison systems attempting to discharge inmates convicted of serious crimes often have few options. Nursing home beds can be hard to find even for those without criminal records.
Spending on inmates’ medical care is increasing — in New York, it has grown to just over $7,500 in 2021 from about $6,000 per person in 2012. Even so, those who work with the incarcerated say the money is often not enough to keep up with the growing share of older inmates who have chronic health problems. “We see a lot of unfortunate gaps in care,” said Dr. William Weber, an emergency physician in Chicago and medical director of the Medical Justice Alliance, a nonprofit that trains doctors to work as expert witnesses in cases involving prison inmates. Almost all states have programs that allow early release for inmates with serious or life-threatening medical conditions. New York’s program is one of the more expansive: While other states often limit the policy to those with less than six months to live, New York’s is open to anyone with a terminal or debilitating illness. Nearly 90 people were granted medical parole in New York between 2020 and 2023.
“Although I’m sympathetic to the difficulty of finding placements, the default solution cannot be continued incarceration,” said Steven Zeidman of the criminal defense clinic at CUNY School of Law. In 2019, one of his clients died in prison weeks after being granted medical parole.
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