This Chicago Criminal attorney has posted here and here about housing inmates. Still, it’s a sad day when Illinois makes history by incarcerating the oldest person to ever enter prison here.
Convicted sex offender George Todd entered the Illinois prison system on Tuesday to begin serving seven years — which for him likely will be a life sentence.
Todd is 85, the oldest inmate ever to enter the state’s prison population, prison officials said.
Sentenced last month for molesting a 14-year-old girl, the Barrington area man must serve about five years behind bars before being eligible for release.
Todd is an extreme example of what is becoming increasingly common across Illinois and the country — prisons holding increasing numbers of aging inmates.
The number of men and women in state and federal prisons age 55 and older grew 76 percent between 1999 and 2008, rising from 43,300 to 76,400, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics said. During the same time, the entire prison population grew only 18 percent.
In Illinois, the change was even more extreme.
The number of inmates at least 55 years old more than doubled — rising about 130 percent from 916 in 1999 to 2,113 in 2008, according to state statistics. The total prison population rose only about 2.6 percent during the same time, reaching 45,545 inmates in 2008.
Looks like there’s still space for Baby Boomers.
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