By: Rach Angard, Community Impact Coordinator, Next50
Receiving a sentence of life without parole “has nothing to do with life,” says Rupalee Rashatwar, a staff attorney with the Abolitionist Law Center. “People are being sentenced to die in a cage. What we’re really talking about is sentencing someone to die in prison.”
This is why the ALC prefers to use the term sentenced to death by incarceration. This is why they fight for compassionate release, allowing qualified folks with terminal illnesses to live the rest of their lives outside of prison. This is why they are dedicating untold hours and resources to fighting for the dignity of older adults who have been sentenced to death by incarceration.
This organization works to protect and preserve the rights of older adults. With more than 10,000 people over the age of 50 behind bars, Pennsylvania has one of the oldest prison populations in the country. This population keeps aging because of the state’s “draconian long-term sentencing laws”. And prisons are proving themselves incapable of providing these older adults with responsive and proper care.
Through their work inside Pennsylvania prisons, the ALC has found that older adults are being denied appropriate and necessary medical care. Rashatwar says they “are not getting annual checkups like they should be, like what’s recommended for older individuals.” There are no licensed hospice care providers for individuals dying within Pennsylvania prisons, causing major gaps when it comes to receiving adequate pain medication, emergency care, and appropriate end-of-life planning. While this lack of proper care could have serious repercussions for anyone, it is especially dangerous for those living in the harsh conditions of a prison.
The case of Ezra Bozeman, an ALC client, is a particularly illuminating, if heartbreaking, illustration of the indignities older adults face in prison.
At just 19 years old, Ezra Bozeman was convicted on a count of second-degree murder, a charge that in the state of Pennsylvania mandates a sentence of life without parole. His case is a familiar one in this country: he was a young black man tried by an all-white jury. The original suspect walked free while Bozeman was doomed to spend the next 49 years – his entire adult life – behind bars.
While in prison, Bozeman suffered for years from a misdiagnosed spinal injury. Finally, at the age of 68, Bozeman received long-needed spinal surgery. However, due to medical complications, he “unexpectedly, overnight, became quadriplegic,” says Rashatwar.
The insufficient medical care in prison first unnecessarily prolonged his pain. Then it stole the use of his limbs. This is when the Abolitionist Law Center stepped in.
One of the ALC’s core campaigns is helping incarcerated older adults obtain compassionate release. This is a law wherein those people “experiencing dire, terminal health conditions, may petition the court to release them from prison before they have completed their sentences”. Compassionate release enables people to live out their final days, weeks, or months among their friends and family. It restores the respect that they rarely receive during their time in prison.
When Mr. Bozeman was suddenly fully paralyzed, compassionate release became his only option to die with dignity. Despite setback after legal setback, the Abolitionist Law Center finally saw success. They won Mr. Bozeman the right to spend his last two weeks among his family and devoted fiancée. They won him the right to privacy in his hospital room, without the accompaniment of prison guards. They won him the right to dignity, something that had been denied him for nearly fifty years, in his final days.
To support this compassionate release initiative, the ALC partners with two local organizations to aid the difficult transitions back to society or through the end of life. The Center for Carceral Communities offers reentry support and community for people who have been recently released from prison. The Philadelphia Death Doula Collective connects death doulas with dying individuals to help these folks prepare and plan for the end of their lives. Prisons rarely, if ever, offer this kind of support to their population, which can make the scary time of facing release or facing death even scarier.
The Abolitionist Law Center is committed to finding dignity in aging within our country’s often unjust justice system. They know that advocating for compassionate release is both a moral and practical solution. Medical care for the aging prison population comes at an exorbitant cost – often exceeding $100,000 per year, per person. Being released from prison and back into society allows older adults to die with dignity among their loved ones while also receiving access to Medicare/Medicaid, easing the financial burden on both individuals and institutions. For other incarcerated older adults, much like Mr. Bozeman, this kind of human relief, this kind of financial relief, can bring back hope at the end of decades of suffering.
By fighting for the legal and medical rights of the older adults who have had so many rights taken from them, the Abolitionist Law Center is changing the lives and ends of the lives of those they serve.
To review the Abolitionist Law Center report, click here.
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