Elderly person in prison cell holding onto the bars

Florida’s Longest-Serving Inmates: They Get Older, Sicker and More Well-behaved

An hour south of Miami, down the street from an alligator farm, a security guard buzzes visitors into the Homestead Correctional Institution. Each guest’s bags are run through a rickety metal detector and he or she is issued a panic button — a portable alarm that can be clipped to a waistband and pressed if an inmate attacks.