The U.S. prison population is rapidly graying. Prisons aren’t built for what’s coming
When Andre Gay went to state prison in Pennsylvania in 1972, he was just 16 years old, sentenced to life without parole for murder and aggravated robbery.
“I was a kid when I came to jail,” he says, “so I was basically a blank slate.”
Gay learned from the older men there, whom he called his elders. They would hold classes together every day on all kinds of topics: politics, economics, religion, law.