Imprisoned felons in Louisiana and California are being given an extraordinary opportunity to show care and compassion for fellow inmates. As the numbers of convicts developing dementia grows, overburdened prisons are turning to inmates to assist the afflicted with their most intimate tasks: showering, shaving, applying deodorant, even changing adult diapers.
A psychologist at the California Men’s Colony, where prisoners who help inmates with dementia are called Gold Coats because of their yellow jackets, says without them, “we wouldn’t be able to care for our dementia patients very well.”
(READ the story in the New York Times)