A new investigative podcast, “Dying on the Inside: Women Lifers at Muncy Prison,” looks at “the growing crisis of aging and dying in America’s prisons.”
Cherri Gregg, the co-host of Studio2 at WHYY, is a host and co-executive producer of the podcast. She talked about it with WPSU’s Emily Reddy.
Here's that conversation:
Emily Reddy:
Cherri Gregg, thanks for talking with me.
Cherri Gregg:
Thanks for having me.
Emily Reddy:
You created “Dying on the Inside” with Yvonne Latty, the director of Temple University's Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting. The five-episode podcast explores the issue of the aging prison population through the stories of some of the 143 women serving life sentences at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, near Williamsport.
And because of those lifers getting older, the prison now has a new, nearly $6 million infirmary. Can you describe in what ways you saw that aging population when you toured the prison for this podcast?
Cherri Gregg:
Yeah, we spent several hours walking throughout Muncy, and it was… I'll never forget it. We were able to explore that brand new infirmary that was built a few years ago. They actually have a hospice wing, a dialysis center and so many other services to deal with people who are aging.
I call this a third rail of criminal justice reform, because we spend a lot of time talking about who goes in, but not a lot of time talking about what happens when people never come out. And so you’re seeing that being dealt with as the system tries to adapt inside of SCI Muncy.
One of the most interesting interactions I had was with a woman who was in her late 60s who had full-on dementia. She didn't know who she was, where she was, what day it was, and she was in a cell. And so, it raises a lot of questions when you meet someone like that and they're incarcerated.
Emily Reddy:
Some statistics you share in the podcast are that nationally, the average age of incarcerated women has risen to 41, while visits to prison infirmaries have surged 573% in the past five years.
And, I mean, there's the human element, but that's expensive for states as well. Right?
Cherri Gregg:
It's very expensive. It could cost up to $120,000 a year to take care of one aging person.
Prison systems are not built for aging people. I mean, the facilities, the staffing, the routines. And I think that one thing people don't realize is you hear “41,” on the outside that’s not old. That's middle age. But once you hit age 50 and 55, that's considered “geriatric” inside of prison because of a thing called “accelerated aging.” You lose two to three years off your life for every year of incarceration. And there's a lot of reasons for that: stress, nutrition, and the circumstances of incarceration. It leads to people just having conditions related to their health that people on the outside would experience decades later in life.
Emily Reddy:
And you can't record on the inside. But one lifer who you talked to by phone in the prison is Sylvia Boykin. She's been at Muncie for 33 years. She says she just wants to go home, see her great grandchildren, start a program to share her story and keep other young people out of prison. She tells you about her illnesses. So, what is she dealing with as an example of what some of these older women in prisons are dealing with?
Cherri Gregg:
Well, a lot of the women we spoke to have diabetes, high blood pressure, severe back problems, which means that they can't walk. You see a lot of people with walkers, canes, in wheelchairs. That is very common among people who've been there for decades.
And the unique thing about Sylvia, which I think also applies to a number of the women that we spoke to, is she did not take a life. And in her case, she's been incarcerated for 33 years. But the man she was with, who actually committed the murder, has been out after six years in prison. So, he's been out for more than 25 years at this point, and she's still locked up.
Emily Reddy:
And I think that this is something that a lot of people don't know about, is that in Pennsylvania, a second-degree murder conviction is a life sentence without possibility of parole. And it can be in that kind of situation where someone you were with – a drug deal gone bad, someone else kills someone – and you can go to jail for life. And how much is that affecting this aging prison population issue?
Cherri Gregg:
It's a pretty significant impact. And because… people have to understand that women are incarcerated for reasons that are different than men. Women most likely are incarcerated because of dealings with a man, because of drug abuse, mental health problems, or because they were themselves abused. And so, women typically aren't masterminds of crime, although it does happen, but many of them were just crime adjacent.
Now, not to say that these women are innocent. Because I want to say that, you know, this podcast is not to say that people shouldn't be held accountable. But, you know, if someone didn't take a life, it does raise a lot of questions that are being raised and discussed right now as a result of a case from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as to whether or not it is cruel to force them to die in prison if in fact they didn't take a life themselves.
Emily Reddy:
Yeah. So, the state Supreme Court just found that these mandatory life-without-parole convictions are unconstitutional. I assume you didn't know that that was going to happen when you started this podcast two years ago... What do you think that this means for the lifers you talked with and the future of this aging prison population issue?
Cherri Gregg:
Well, they are very hopeful, but the time is ticking. I mean, the court gave the legislature 120 days from March 26 to go ahead and try to come up with a legislative scheme that would facilitate the resentencing of hundreds of people across the Commonwealth. And so far, no dice. Nothing has happened.
If they don't meet that July 24 deadline, this would very likely go back to the courts. Which would mean it could be years before people see relief because each individual would have to file a petition.
But what this does say to all of those people serving felony murder life-without-parole sentences, it says that there is an active debate about this issue.
And I want to point out one more thing, Emily. Pennsylvania has the third largest life-without-parole population in the country, behind only California and Florida. And their populations are a lot bigger than us.
Emily Reddy:
Now, I've only listened to the first episode. Is there is there a bigger takeaway, you know, of the whole thing that you want people to hear and learn?
Cherri Gregg:
We just want people to… We're using data. We’re using reporting. We talked to doctors, policymakers, and we really just think that it's time that we have a difficult conversation about what justice looks like at the end of long prison sentences.
You know, we had the “lock them up” ‘80s and ‘90s. We had tough-on-crime era, but we never really sat down and thought about what happens to people at the end of a sentence. It doesn't help public safety if we're spending millions of dollars incarcerating people in wheelchairs.
And so, we really need to think about who we are as a society, and what justice really looks like at the end of a prison sentence. And, you know, it's a difficult conversation, but it's one I think we all need to have. And it's about time that we have it.
Emily Reddy:
Cherri Gregg, thanks for talking with us.
Cherri Gregg:
Thanks for having me.
Emily Reddy:
Cherri Gregg is a host and co-executive producer of the podcast “Dying on the Inside: Women Lifers at Muncy Prison.” You can find those podcasts and additional reporting at WHYY.org/dyingontheinside. I'm Emily Reddy, WPSU.
