By Peter Currier
The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
BILLERICA, Mass. — Officials from the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office gathered at the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction to celebrate the successful launch of a new unit designed for the needs of older inmates.
The Older Adult Re-Entry unit saw its first inmates in October, and to this point has housed 35 total inmates, most of them older than 55. As of the headcount on Friday, there were 14 inmates, though that number fluctuates as some enter and others leave.
The unit is laid out differently than a traditional jail unit, with no cells and an open plan with beds raised off the ground with thicker mattresses to help the older prisoners get in and out of bed more easily. It features age-friendly exercise equipment, rocking chairs, a locker for each inmate, a small library of books and board games, and a wide itinerary of programming aimed at keeping the inmates’ minds sharp as they age and to prepare them to reenter society.
Middlesex Sheriff’s Office Assistant Superintendent of Programming Shawn MacMaster credited Sheriff Peter Koutoujian for starting the conversation about how they accommodate their older inmates.
“It started from Sheriff Koutoujian’s vision for data-driven corrections. He noticed that our population’s overall age was increasing, same as it was across the country — a phenomenon that we call the graying of corrections,” said McMaster. “He wanted to see if we could target services to this population in the same way that we have with incarcerated young adults, veterans and those battling substance use disorder.”
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The jail and Sheriff’s Office partnered with Boston University and UMass Boston in researching what they would need to properly accommodate older inmates in a way that reduces recidivism. Inmates aged 55 and older represent about 10% of the MHOC’s inmate population, an increase of about 5% in the last decade.
“Older adults are the fastest-growing population in the country. In fact, being a baby boomer myself, the youngest of the baby boomer generation just turned 60 this year. By 2030, the population of people over the age of 60 will be 25%,” said Koutoujian Friday morning. “Imagine that, 25% of our country will be over the age of 60, both nationally and here in Massachusetts. So it should not be a surprise that that very same statistic holds true here in a correctional facility.”
While it is relatively common for prisons to have accommodations for their older inmates, Koutoujian said they looked across the country and could not find an example of a prison unit that functions like the OAR unit.
“But what we didn’t find was any unit created with therapeutic and programming aspects in mind. So we decided to create one,” said Koutoujian. “We decided to mark that commitment right in the name: Older Adult Re-Entry, because unlike a medical unit or memory unit, we are preparing these men to leave here for those next 10, 15 or 20 years of their unique lives from their unique age as well.”
One of the OAR inmates is 59-year-old Roger Richardson, who has six months left in a two-year sentence stemming from a probation violation. When the facility was about to begin accepting inmates, Richardson was asked if he wanted to volunteer to be in the first group, which he accepted.
“It’s been pretty good, you know, it is nice and comfortable here. They treat us pretty good,” said Richardson.
Richardson has been participating in a work release program, and in the OAR units he has been putting a plan together for when he is released.
“The classes were all great here. You know, I took a lot out of it. I put a lot of work into it. So when I go home, you know, I have things. I have a good team here, a good team at home to help me out. So I feel confident. I feel great,” said Richardson.
One of the classes the inmates have been taking is learning the Hindi language, a particularly difficult language for native English speakers to learn, which was chosen in part to better stimulate the inmates’ brains.
Boston University Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Dean Jack Dennerlein called the effort “a no-brainer.”
“Our involvement started with evaluating the physical design … where faculty and clinicians from our Department of Occupational Therapy suggested enhancements,” said Dennerlein. “Increasing bed height, ordering specialized mattresses, selecting calming paint colors … the pathways mitigating fall risk.”
The officers assigned to the unit were each given six hours of specialized training in working with an older inmate population. One of those officers, Kevin Ouellette, spoke highly of what he had seen in the first months of the unit’s existence.
“When they first came in, they were a little nervous about the unit, like uneasy about it. And then after time in the unit, they became more comfortable,” said Ouellette. “I think that is a benefit of the mattresses that we have. The color scheme of the unit promotes relaxation for them and then it gives them more energy to focus on the programs and the things they need to get done. And as time would progress, you would see them have more energy. They’ll start using the equipment, go for walks more because in the first couple months they were just mostly to their bunks and more hesitant and more down. And they would just open up more and you would see that every time a new person comes, they would follow the same patterns.”
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