After 34 years in prison, 67-year-old Cat Reed is suffering from sarcoidosis in the lungs, thyroid disease, sciatica, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes, which she blames on decades of starchy prison food. When she entered prison in 1992, she was 33 years old and, as she puts it, in “pretty good health.” But years of starchy prison food, inadequate medical care, sleeping on flimsy mattresses atop metal bunks, and the general chaos and violence in prison have worsened her health. And she’s not the only one.
“We have seniors all over the prison,” she told The Appeal.
California has two women’s prisons, which incarcerate approximately 3,600 people. After decades of tough-on-crime policies, the state’s prison population is graying. Roughly one in five people in women’s prisons are over the age of 50. Although data from the prison system shows that recidivism rates decline with age, the state spends up to $300 million each year incarcerating approximately 740 elders in women’s prisons.
No Time to Wait, a new report by the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and the UC Berkeley Law Policy Advocacy Clinic, analyzes pathways for release, including commutations, compassionate release, medical release, resentencing, and parole. It recommends that the state utilize elderly parole and resentencing more expansively, allowing more aging people, particularly those sentenced during California’s tough-on-crime era, to be released.
Currently, those serving life without parole (LWOP) or death sentences are barred from many of these avenues. As of 2025, 173 people, including Reed, in California’s women’s prisons were serving LWOP. Seventeen were serving death sentences.
Read the full story from The Appeal here.