The aging prison population

Researchers studying the effects of California's three-strikes law have found a puzzling trend: older adults are being arrested for felonies in droves, while felony arrests of juveniles are dropping. C.J. Lin in the Daily News.

The trend can be attributed to an "enormous increase in drug abuse" by an aging population, according to Mike Males of the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, during a three-strikes symposium at the University of Southern California earlier this month.

"We now see a dramatic reversal in the aging of the crime population," Males said. "It baffles me."