"Quelling the Silver Tsunami: Compassionate Release of Elderly Offenders"

The title of this post is the title of this 2018 article authored by Jalila Jefferson-Bullock recently posted to SSRN. Though authored before the passage of the FIRST STEP Act, the article is still particularly timely in light of that new law's various provisions enabling the moving certain defendants out of prison and into home confinement.  Here is the article's abstract:

Sentencing reform appears resurrected.  Following a brief hiatus and an expectedly unwelcoming recent federal response, sentencing reform is again reemerging as a major initiative.  Congress and the several states are poised to immediately accomplish major reform of the United States criminal sentencing structure.  Proposals that would, among other initiatives, drastically reduce criminal sentences, restore rehabilitative programs to inmates, generate sentencing parity, normalize probation for low-level offenses, and shrink the overall prison footprint are ambling through various legislative processes throughout the country.  Though groundbreaking and certainly welcome, these reforms largely ignore the special needs of the imprisoned elderly.  One of the most foreseeable, yet ironically ignored, consequences of 1980's and 1990's harsh sentencing laws, is the dramatic upsurge in prison population through the predictable process of human aging.  Coined the prison “silver tsunami” phenomenon, surging numbers of elderly inmates raises significant moral, health, and fiscal implications deserving keen scrutiny.  It is imperative, then, that any overhaul of criminal sentencing focuses on how to meaningfully address the graying of America's prisons.