The title underscores a tragic indifference in American society (if not elsewhere) that "Old ladies" (and perhaps ladies in general) deserve some sort of extraordinary sympathy that old men, or men in general do not. Why are old ladies locked up? For the same reasons old men are locked up. They did the crime, they are doing the time.
though there wasn't an explicit mention of the race of these old ladies, I can't help but think that the common visual conjured up by this title is of old white ladies, you know the type that helped President Obama get into the hearts of 45% of white folk in the US. Clearly there's little sympathy for relatively old black women like Assata, or relatively old black men like Mumia. For that matter I haven't seen an article attempting to raise sympathy for black political prisoners. But I suppose nothing quite pulls at heartstrings like "old ladies."
"She was a tiny old woman who just wanted to be released," said Killian.
Mumia is just a black political prisoner who just wants to be released.
Assata is just a black woman who'd like to go back to her home in NJ.
There are thousands of political prisoners who would just like to go home.