Michigan officials are now sounding the alarm about an aging prison population. The framing suggests surprise, as if this outcome appeared overnight.
…It did not.
According to Bridge Michigan, more than 2,100 people in Michigan prisons are now age 65 or older, roughly 7 percent of the total incarcerated population. The number is rising steadily, driven by longer sentences, fewer parole approvals, and the collapse of meaningful sentence review mechanisms. And it’s costing Michiganders a fortune in paying for their healthcare costs.
“Our population is aging because when you come to prison in Michigan, you tend to stay longer periods of time,” said Heidi Washington, the director of the department.
What officials describe as a “challenge” is actually the way too predictable result of decades of bad policy choices that ignored data, ignored human development, and treated incarceration as a permanent solution rather than a temporary intervention.
This is not a management problem. It is an outright refusal to confront reality in lieu of political propaganda.
People Age Out of Crime. We Have Known This for Decades.
Criminological research has been consistent for more than 40 years. Criminal behavior declines sharply with age. By the time someone reaches their 40s, the likelihood of reoffending drops significantly. By their 60s, it approaches statistical irrelevance.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission has repeatedly confirmed that older people have the lowest recidivism rates of any age group. People over 65 are among the least likely to be rearrested, reconvicted, or reincarcerated.
This is not controversial. It is not new. It is not disputed.
Yet Michigan continues to incarcerate people into old age as if time, health decline, and human development do not exist.
Long Sentences Without Second Looks Create Human Warehouses
The department has observed an upward trend in the average minimum sentence imposed by judges, rising from just two years two decades ago to the current five years. Around clutch, just one of those problematic judges aiding to the crisis, is Judge Michael Schipper, Barry County. By his own admission, his sentencing decisions largely come from his disagreement with legislature rather than science; one that the Michigan Court of Appeals has rebuffed several times in the last year.
Judges who behave this way are sending a clear message: they believe their flawed assessment is superior to legitimate data and evidence-based policies.
Michigan’s aging prison population is not the result of rising crime among older adults. It is the result of sentencing policies that removed off-ramps. People sentenced in their teens or twenties are now in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Many have served decades. Many have complied with programming. Many have clean disciplinary records. Many are physically incapable of posing any threat.
Still, they remain.
Second Look sentencing legislation has been proposed, but has stalled. Parole remains restrictive and inconsistent. Compassionate release remains narrow and rarely granted. The system is not failing to release people because it lacks evidence. It is failing because it refuses to value evidence over punishment.
The Cost Argument Misses the Point but Still Tells the Story
The state acknowledges that aging prisoners cost more. Medical care for older incarcerated people is significantly more expensive due to chronic illness, disability, and end-of-life needs.
Wheelchairs, oxygen, dialysis, assisted mobility, and constant medical supervision are now routine inside facilities never designed for geriatric care.
But even framed purely as a fiscal issue, the logic collapses.
Michigan is spending more money to incarcerate people who statistically present the least risk, while underfunding housing, mental health care, and violence prevention in the communities people eventually return to.
This is not efficiency. It is institutional inertia.
The Illusion of Public Safety
Keeping aging people incarcerated is often justified in the name of public safety. That justification does not survive scrutiny.
There is no evidence that incarcerating people into old age makes communities safer. There is substantial evidence that releasing aging people with community supports does not increase crime and often reduces long-term system costs.
What incarceration offers instead is the illusion of control. A belief that removing people permanently eliminates risk, even when the risk no longer exists.
That illusion has consequences. It strips people of decades of life. It fractures families permanently. It concentrates suffering while claiming moral authority. And more often than not, it only incarcerates the poor. If someone is wealthy and dangerous, they’ll never have to report to prison.
At a certain point, this stops being about safety and starts resembling social disposal.
Warehousing as Policy Choice
When a system knowingly confines people past the point of risk, rehabilitation, or necessity, it is no longer about accountability.
It becomes warehousing.
And when that warehousing disproportionately affects people who were sentenced young, people of color, and people from under-resourced communities, it carries an uncomfortable resemblance to quiet, bureaucratic eugenics. Not explicit. Not dramatic. Just a slow removal of entire lifetimes from public view.
Michigan did not stumble into this outcome. It chose it.
What Following the Data Would Actually Look Like
Following the data would mean acknowledging that incarceration is not a lifetime sentence by default. It would mean:
- Automatic sentence reviews after a defined period of incarceration
- Age-based parole presumptions grounded in recidivism data
- Expanded compassionate release tied to functional capacity, not terminal illness alone
- Reinvestment of savings into reentry housing, health care, and community support
These are not radical ideas. They are evidence-based ones. We need to start making smarter decisions not just for taxpayers, but for communities as a whole.
The Question Michigan Avoids
The aging prison population is not asking the state to solve a new problem. It is asking Michigan to admit that it has been wrong for a very long time. If people age out of crime, and the data proves they do, then continuing to incarcerate them is not justice. It is punishment for punishment’s sake. Being vindictive and destroying lives simply because someone can.
And it is long past time we stopped confusing the illusion of public safety with the reality of human harm.
Sources
- Bridge Michigan. Michigan’s prison population is aging, posing new challenges and costs.
- U.S. Sentencing Commission. The Effects of Aging on Recidivism Among Federal Offenders.
- Vera Institute of Justice. Aging and Infirm Prison Populations: Challenges and Solutions.
