Second Chances Resource Library

The “graying” of the United States prison system is a well-documented phenomenon that describes the aging of the population currently held in U.S. state and federal prisons.  Between 2009 and 2019, as the total population of individuals detained in state and federal prison systems decreased by 11.4%, the number of people over age 55 incarcerated in state and federal correctional institutions more than doubled from 75,300 to 180,836.  This is often attributed to the large number of detained individuals who are aging in place due to long sentences
and restrictive parole practices. Less well-known or well-characterized is the fact that the U.S.’s justice-involved population outside of prisons is also “graying”—that the demographics of people who are being arrested, jail detained, transferred to prisons on new criminal convictions, and monitored under community surveillance programs are also changing to include a higher proportion of seniors.