This policy document, published by the Center for Justice at Columbia University and edited by Samuel Roberts, Associate Professor of History at Columbia University and director for the Institute for Research in African American Studies, is the result of the 2014 symposium hosted by the Mailman School of Public Health/Columbia University and organized by the Center for Justice, the Osborne Association, the Correctional Association of New York, Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP, Be the Evidence Project/Fordham, and the Florence V. Burden Foundation.
The symposium examined the growing numbers of aging people in prison, their prison conditions, their transition back into the community and the need to increase the release of aging people who pose little or no public safety risk. This is a critical part of reducing mass incarceration and of creating a more fair, just and humane justice system.