Australia's prisons are filing up with older criminals, overloading prison authorities with the same age-related health problems facing the community in general.
A paper, released by the Australian Institute of Criminology, says statistics show a 128 per cent increase in the number of prisoners aged over 65 in the period 2000-2010 and a 84 per cent increase in those aged over 50.
The number of female prisoners aged over 50 has increased by 241 per cent.
Australia's general population also is getting older but by nowhere near the same amount.
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