19 April, 2024
by Mark Teisman
There's a court case ongoing, where an eighty-year old male is being prosecuted. A news article shared some interesting statements that the defendant's lawyer made.
“A long prison sentence for an octogenarian can de facto be equivalent to a life sentence,” Admiraal [the criminal defence lawyer] said. He pointed out that the average age in the Netherlands is 81.6 years old, and that for a man is slightly lower. "To that extent, the Public Prosecution Service has statistically demanded a life sentence."
The stated life expectancy is pretty accurate. In 2022, life expectancy at birth was 80.1 years for men and 83.1 years for women - source. The lawyer's logic, is of course entirely flawed, and I expect he is fully aware of that too. If an eighty year old receiving a 2.5 year prison sentence "statistically is a life sentence", then the male defendant should now "statistically be dead".
Life tables describe the mortality and survival patterns of a population. On the basis of (annual) mortality rates for each age or age group, they provide information on parameters such as the number of survivors, the number of deaths and life expectancy. Life tables would thus be a good source to fact-check if a 2.5 year long prison sentence for an 80 year-old is in fact statistically a life sentence.
From StatLine it seems that (the prognosis of) the life expectancy of an 80 year-old male in 2024 is 8.96 years. 2.5 years is not a life sentence per se.