ABSTRACT
The ageing of the world population is having a profound effect on many institutions, including prisons. In the past few decades the number of prisoners aged 50 and over has risen significantly in many jurisdictions. With reference to jurisdictions such as England and Wales and the US this chapter outlines the mismatch between the needs of elderly prisoners and the prisons’ capacity to meet these needs. This outline demonstrates that among elderly prisoners there many who die in prison or are seriously ill. Although imprisonment for a crime is a legitimate deprivation of the right to liberty, human rights place certain limits on the administration of imprisonment. Against this backdrop this chapter sets the stage for exploring the human rights limits on continued imprisonment of those elderly prisoners who are seriously ill or are serving sentences with mandatory custodial terms longer than their life expectancy.
