A sentence to spend your life in prison, get sick in prison, and die in prison is not a life sentence: it is a sentence to death by incarceration. Pennsylvania uses this inhumane sentencing more than any other state but Florida and any other country in the world. 

As a result, we have one of the oldest prison populations in the U.S. Currently, 10,000 elderly incarcerated people are serving either lengthy sentences or death by incarceration with no possibility of parole.

Inside the prison system, life expectancy changes: people age 55 or older are considered elders because their lives are much shorter than people who are free due to chronic violence, neglect, stress, and isolation. 

For incarcerated people at the end of their lives, dying is especially devastating. Commutation is almost nonexistent in practice. Their loved ones on the outside are not able to support them as their health and awareness deteriorate and they are denied the chance to spend end-of-life time together.

This suffering serves no purpose. Science indicates that people age out of violence. The vast majority of people who commit violent crimes are sentenced under the age of 25 while the brain is still developing. Many are now serving those sentences as elders, by which age recidivism rates plummet. Keeping them incarcerated is pointless, expensive, and cruel.