Sentencing outcomes of the older prison population: an exploration of the age leniency argument Anita N. Blowers a * and Jill K. Doerner b a Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC, USA; b Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA (Received 31 January 2013; final version received 29 June 2013) Using data compiled by the United States Sentencing Commission, we examine whether defendants sentenced in US federal courts are shown leniency based on their age, paying particular attention to the outcomes of older defendants (age 50 and over). One way in which this research is unique is that it focuses exclusively on a sample of older offenders and makes more precise distinctions by separately examining three categories of ‘elderly’ offenders – the ‘young-old,’ the ‘middle-old,’ and the ‘oldest- old.’ Consistent with prior research, our findings indicate an age leniency effect where younger defendants (the ‘young-old’) had the highest odds and older defendants (the ‘oldest-old’) had the lowest odds of incarceration. However, contrary to expectations, this finding does not hold for the sentence length decision. Legal factors (criminal history, number of counts, going to trial) also played a large role in increasing the likelihood and length of their sentence outcomes. In addition, variations were found across different types of offense categories. The findings in this study point to the importance of making clearer distinctions between the ‘elderly’ offender populations and suggest that findings may be masked if differences between the ‘young-old’ and the ‘old-old’ are not considered. Our results indicate the need for continued exploration of issues dealing specifically with the aging prison population, as well as the examination of policies and practices that impact offenders of all ages. Keywords: sentencing; age; disparity Introduction During the past decade, the number of older offenders incarcerated in state and federal prisons has increased dramatically. The population of prisoners aged 50 and above is twice as large today as it was in 2001 and five times as large as it was in 1990 (West and Sabol 2009, Haugebrook et al. 2010). At the end of 2009, there were 79,100 inmates (5.11% of the total prison population) aged 55 and older. That number doubles when the age is reduced to 50; hence, there were 160,700 prisoners aged 50 and older at the end of 2009, accounting for 10.38% of the total prison population (West et al. 2010). Older inmates account for the largest percentage of growth among prisoners and some speculate that older inmates will make up about one-third of the prison population by 2020 (Enders et al. 2005, Blowers et al. 2014, Blevins and Blowers 2014). Much of this growth is attributed to several factors. First, the ‘get tough on crime’ movement and the accompanying harsher sentencing practices have resulted in placing stricter limits on judicial discretion to consider ‘extra-legal’ factors such as the age of the offender. This means that a greater q 2013 Midwestern Criminal Justice Association *Corresponding author. Email: anblower@uncc.edu Journal of Crime and Justice, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2013.822161 Downloaded by [72.200.180.183] at 06:31 16 August 2013