WASHINGTON (AP) – Months after being sent to prison for a fraud conviction, Iowa businessman Clarence Rice began experiencing severe stomach pains that required extended hospital visits. Then came the diagnosis of bile duct cancer – and, with it, the painful acceptance that he’d have just months to live.
His one hope for freedom was a federal program that permits the early release of certain aging and ailing prisoners. But prison officials denied his request on the grounds that he hadn’t served enough of his sentence. Rice died in January 2013 at the age of 64, after a year in custody.
“It was such a painful experience – so painful and difficult,” recalled his daughter, Allison Rice, still shaken by the memories of her father’s gaunt and jaundiced face and her final visit with him.
Now, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the independent panel that sets sentencing policy, is weighing changes to the Bureau of Prisons’ compassionate release program that can free prisoners for “extraordinary and compelling” reasons.
The issue is important, since prison officials have described prisoners 50 and older as their fastest-growing demographic, up by 25 percent from 2009 to 2013. Yet even though studies show that the elderly are far less likely to re-offend after release, prison officials have struggled to define who should be considered. The result: inmates have sometimes died behind bars even after they’ve been found to meet the criteria for release.