In most parts of the world, it is taken for granted that whoever is convicted of a serious crime will be sent to prison. In most circles, prison abolition is simply unthinkable and implausible. Prison abolitionists are dismissed as utopians and idealists whose ideas are, at best, unrealistic, impracticable, and foolish. This is how difficult it is to envision a social order that does not rely on the threat of sequestering people in prisons, designed to separate them from their communities and families.

Where does the idea of the prison system come from? Who gave politicians the power to decide who goes to prison? Where does this power originate? How do ordinary men, because they get elected to government, wield such power? I contend that we have been indoctrinated to believe in “government authority” and have bought into their system of laws and punishment for crimes. We have legitimized their authority and control over us.

A close examination reveals that there are few laws in America, mostly customs, especially for the rich and powerful. The laws are for the 99 percent of citizens who have bought into the notion of government and their authority to rule us. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 1.9 million people locked up in prisons on any given day. Some arrested will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bail and remain behind bars until their trial.

Twenty-five percent of people who go to jail will be arrested again within the same year. Most of them are poor, mentally ill, and have substance use disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration. Thirty-two percent of people in prison are Black, 31% white, and 23% Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics represent 25% of the general population but 55% of the jail population. Is racism, or the profit motives of private companies, driving incarceration?

Private and public agencies profit from mass incarceration through privatizing services: renting jail space to other agencies, contracting out prison food, health, telecom, and commissary functions. Studies show that officials are forcing prisoners to provide labor at 86 cents to $3.45 per day. For food service and laundry in at least five states, these jobs pay nothing. This privatization of the prison system has created a multi-billion private prison-industry complex. Worse, in addition to abusing prisoners, it has transferred the cost of incarceration to the prisoners and their families.

Prison officials and workers report that prison is a difficult environment, and people behind bars tend to age faster than people on the outside. For that reason, “geriatric” in prison can mean someone as young as 50. The COVID-19 pandemic made obvious the need to reduce the number of incarcerated people. But instead of considering the release of prisoners based on their age or individual circumstances, most officials and right-leaning lawmakers refused to consider releasing old prisoners.

Statistics showed that the risk for violence peaks in adolescence or early adulthood and then declines with age. However, the system incarcerates people long after their risk of committing crimes has declined. Although the victims of violence want violence prevention, not incarceration, policymakers, judges, and prosecutors often invoke the names of victims to justify long sentences for violent offenses. The result is that more than 186,000 people 55 years or older are currently held in state and federal prisons. This large population of adult prisoners has created serious problems in the prison system since the facilities were not designed to house old people.

Unsurprisingly, prison officials are grappling with how to retrofit existing facilities, such as making cells wheelchair accessible, accommodating prisoners who can no longer climb to an upper bunk, providing healthcare and food inside units when prisoners aren’t mobile, and installing more outlets for continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines. Some states have opted to build entirely new facilities to house elderly or sick prisoners because old facilities are not set up to take care of elderly people who are now full-time patients.

Officials are realizing that caring for elderly prisoners is expensive. Studies found that it could be anywhere from three to nine times more expensive than for younger prisoners. The Bureau of Statistics reports that the U.S. spends $81 billion a year on mass incarceration, yet officials refuse to stop the disastrous policy decisions in policing, sentencing, and reentry over the past 50 years.

Prisons don’t make people better; they make people worse. Almost half of all people serving life without parole (LWOP) sentences are more than 50 years old. Since prisons were never designed to be geriatric wards for individuals with a whole host of age-related issues—from arthritic knees to difficulty bathing to the extensive medical attention required for illnesses like strokes, emphysema, Alzheimer’s, and cancer—prisons are becoming “hospitals.” Lawmakers and many officials are financially invested in the prison system. Is this why they refuse to end the tough-on-crime policies that contribute to the problem? Is it because the majority of the prison population is Black, Brown, and poor that they have no problem using taxpayers’ money to maintain a broken system?

The older someone is, the less likely they are to be arrested following release from prison. Most of that $81 billion could be spent on reducing barriers to enrollment in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and ensuring people have safe places to live in decent communities. Ultimately, the benefits of such changes will benefit the general population. It is time to end the profit-motivated prison-industrial complex.

 (Trinidad-born Carlton Joseph who lives in Washington D.C., is a close observer of political developments in the United States.)

The perspectives and viewpoints articulated by the columnist unequivocally do not represent or endorse the official stance or opinions of the publication.