Indiana’s Aging Prison Population Presents Health Care Challenges

Bryon Bradley, a diminutive, bespectacled, 43-year-old with a mild disposition, was making his daily rounds in the prison infirmary. Bradley shuffled from bed to bed, checking on his patients before stopping in front of Jerald Jessup, a frail 74-year-old wearing an orange knit cap. The tall, rangy septuagenarian, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and uses a wheelchair, was undecided about rec. The two are joined in an uncommon hospice program at Wabash Valley Correctional Institute in Carlisle in which prisoners take care of other, terminally ill, inmates. Since it began three years ago, inmate volunteers have guided 50…

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