Yes, the age we use is 50. That's to recognize people who are incarcerated, because the long history of mental illness, addiction issues and the life of crime prematurely age the body. You can add a chronological factor of 10 years to their age in terms of their health.
I don't know what to tell you. It's a growing number. It's clear to me that other jurisdictions have been able to release those individuals into the community safely and at a much lower cost. Keeping a person aging and dying in prison costs Canadians two to four times the average cost of incarceration, which is $225,000, as I mentioned at the beginning. It's outrageously expensive.
If it could be done by not competing with the.... That's the key. Not competing is what the service tells me. If we're trying to transfer that person out, there's no bed space. There's no long-term care facility bed space. There's no retirement home where we can send them. If the service, given the level of resource, could create bed space.... For example, the State of Connecticut went to the private sector and asked it to build some long-term care facilities. The cost is way cheaper. It doesn't cost $225,000 or two to four times that to keep an aging parent in a retirement home or a long-term care facility. There are huge savings to be made. It is more humane and more dignified. It makes no sense.
There are about 50 to 60 people who die in penitentiary every year, the average age being 62. It's crazy. Two-thirds of these individuals die of natural causes. The vast majority are predictable deaths. People get chronic diseases, become terminally ill and palliative, and die in prison. There's absolutely no reason these individuals should be managing the last few months or year of their lives in a penitentiary.
When we did our systemic investigation on aging, we asked prisoners—we interviewed a lot of them, over 200—and they all told us that their biggest fear was of dying in prison. The service, even with MAID, tells us, “Oh no, we're doing it in prison because it's what they want.” They don't want this. It's inappropriate; it's expensive, and I think we could do better. Given that it's a slowly growing proportion of our penitentiary population, we should be much more proactive. If legislation could help, for example, in terms of medical releases or geriatric releases to force the service to do the right thing, then please do it.