The reason I ask is that a friend is very upset because he has just discovered that the nursing home where his significant other is now housed (fairly severe dementia getting steadily worse) also houses a notorious murderer. My friend does not know why he is there, but it would almost certainly be one the things in the thread title. My friend is obviously concerned about his SO, but I tried to reassure him the guy would almost certainly be harmless by now. But I got curious whether it is standard to house such people in civilian facilities.
Well, I found this, but it’s not a very complete answer.
Dealing with Dementia among aging prisoners
Most such placements happen (at least in Wisconsin) when said prisoner reaches his prison discharge date. Then a suitable nursing home or other facility is found for them. Prior to that discharge, they’re kept in the prison’s maximum security nursing home. Once they hit their discharge date, we can’t keep them in prison.
However, some inmates are so profoundly disabled by their medical conditions that they don’t pose a threat to anyone, and keeping them in a max security nursing home for $200K/year or more doesn’t make much sense. So the courts may be petitioned to consider a sentence modification where they can be transferred to an outside facility. It makes economic sense, tends to serve justice since the inmate is usually not even aware of their surroundings, and helps relieve overcrowding in an area where we do need those beds to take better care of our aging inmate population.
Even so, it’s tough to get such an arrangement set up. The public hates it, judges don’t want to appear soft on crime by letting a demented, paralyzed, bed-ridden, gomertose convict out of prison, and nursing facilities hate to have to tell prospective patients that they’ve got criminals being housed there too.
You OP is a bit sparse. i’m assuming you are referring to an old age frailcare facility.
It sounds like the convicted murderer would have been released under your states medical parole laws, which allow for the early parole of prisoners in the advanced stages of a terminal illness. I do not know whether your state’s laws would consider advanced age-related cognitive impairment to be a terminal illness for purposes of medical parole, but its certainly within the realm of possibility.
Medical parolees are usually weeks - months if they are lucky - away from death and in no position to commit further crimes.
If he has been released on medical parole, it is extremely unlikely that the murderer poses a greater threat than any other resident.
Hari is posting from Montreal, so it would be Canadian federal law which applies (assuming it’s a friend in Canada).
A murderer serves a life sentence, but that doesn’t have to be in a federal corrections centre. Corrections Canada and the National Parole Board can choose to release a prisoner from secure custody on humanitarian grounds. Doesn’t have to go before a judge, unlike Qadgop’s US expérience. The Board can put conditions on the release, such as naming the place the inmate will reside, because someone convicted of murder is in the corrections system for the rest of their life.
Gomertose, my medical terminology understanding expands once again.