Healthcare costs for older inmates skyrocket

ASBURY PARK, N.J. -- Convicted of three counts of robbery when he was still a young man, Steven Thomas has been in prison since December 1982. Now 62, frail and suffering from a relapse of Hepatitis C, he's one of an increasing number of inmates in New Jersey's correctional institutions who have grown old behind bars. Since 2000, the number of prisoners over age 50 in New Jersey's state prisons has jumped nearly 90 percent. There are now nearly 3,000 older prisoners in the state's eight adult correctional institutions.