The Older Prisoner

By Diete Humblet

This book critically explores the world of older prisoners to provide a more nuanced understanding of imprisonment at old age. Through an ethnographical study of male and female older prisoners in two Belgian prison settings, one in which older prisoners are integrated and one in which they are segregated, it informs debates and seeks to recognise ageist discourse, attitudes, practices in prison. The Older Prisoner seeks to situate the older prisoner from both a penological and gerontological perspective, organised around the following broad themes: the construction of the older prisoner, the physical prison world, the social prison world, surviving prison and giving meaning. The book allows readers to navigate between contrasting perspectives and voices rather than reinforcing traditional narratives and prevailing discourses on the older prisoner. In doing so, it hopes to open up a broader dialogue on ageing and punishment. It also offers insights into the concept of meaning in life as an analytical tool to study prisoners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Jan 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9783030601201

Book preview

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

D. HumbletThe Older PrisonerPalgrave Studies in Prisons and Penologyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60120-1_1

1. Introduction

Diete Humblet¹, ²  

(1)

Department of Criminology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

(2)

Research Centre on Care for Older Adults, Odisee University College of Applied Sciences, Brussels, Belgium

Diete Humblet

Email: [e-mail]

Keywords

MethodologyEthnographyIntegrationSegregationGerontologyPenology

Introduction

Why should anyone be interested in the experiences of those who are spending the latter, or last stages of their lives in prison? As a prison scholar with a long-standing scientific interest in the older prisoner, I have found myself pondering that same question. Even after many years studying imprisonment in later life, I still find myself accounting for the study of the processes and problems of ageing in conjunction with the study of punishment of crime and prison management. This, in itself, says a great deal about our ideas and understanding of imprisonment as well as later life. The first section of this introduction attempts to formulate an answer to this question through analyses of the factors that may have affected our thinking in terms of older adults’ involvement in criminal behaviour and the way this is managed. The second section of this introduction is concerned with the scientific research project that forms the basis of this book and concludes with an overview of the research questions that are answered in the following chapters.

In the words of Otto Pollak, even old criminals offer an ugly picture and it seems as if even scientists do not like to look at it for any considerable amount of time (Pollak 1941: 213, own emphasis). In this area of interest, where the disciplines criminology and gerontology meet, this is to be considered as one of the most cited phrases and most poignant observations. Pollak’s early striking observation, that (the control of) deviant behaviour amongst older adults is neglected by the scientific community , has been supported by more recent scholarship. Powell and Wahidin (2006), for example , have already suggested that developing the study of ageing constitutes one of the significant challenges for contemporary criminology. The prolonged failure of mainstream criminology to give adequate attention to the phenomenon of ageing is at best questionable and at worst alarming. Not least because ageing populations do in fact increasingly permeate the field, yet more importantly, it is because the pre-eminent domain of criminologists is to inquire about that which is considered as ‘deviant’.

Amongst other things, it is often assumed that this negligence has been dictated by the well-established relationship between old age and crime (see, e.g. Sapp 1989), the foundations of which were laid out by Adolphe Quételet, who belonged to the first generation of scientists to suggest a strong relationship between age and criminal behaviour . Quételet’s (1984) age-related curve of crime (also known as the ‘age-crime curve’ ) showed that criminal behaviour strongly decreased after the age of 50. This was one of the first etiological studies into the explanations of crime at a later age that made use of a target group that was not only ‘known’ but also relatively easy to research: a group of (relatively older) perpetrators who had already been sent to prison. The study of criminal offending had given a slow but steady impetus to inquire about an older population in the prison setting. However, at the same time, these findings provided some evidence to strengthen the efforts of criminologists to further develop scholarship in view of young(er) adults.

Although ‘elderly’¹ offenders had become the subjects of more extensive research in the 1970s, studies examining imprisonment and adjustment to imprisonment in later life remained scarce. Most researchers have continued to focus primarily on the effects of incarceration on young male prisoners, implying that older inmates, including older female prisoners , are of little concern. The lack of interest in prisoners of advanced age became noticed by a minority of researchers, who described older prisoners in very apt terms: Ham (1976) dubbed them ‘the forgotten minority’, whereas Krajick (1979) made reference to ‘forgotten people’. Goetting (1984) pointed out their low-priority status in society as a whole, as well as within the prison structure. She attributes this to the fact that in combination with their double minority status as being ‘older’ and ‘criminal’, older adults constitute a relatively small proportion of the prisoner population .

Over time, greater attention has been paid to changes within the prison(er) population(s), to some extent prompted by prison overcrowding, and in particular to the evolution in the numbers of ‘older prisoners ’ and their pressing health needs . This is paralleled by societal and scientific evolutions that have come to recognise prisoners and older adults as more vulnerable groups of persons within society (Cuéllar et al. 2015; Martin et al. 2015). More recently, ‘older prisoners’ have been denoted as a ‘doubly disadvantaged’ group (Tarbuck 2001: 369) in terms of their greater morbidity and more complex health needs in comparison to younger prisoners and the general population of a similar age (Fazel et al. 2001). Over the last decade, the impact of the prison environment on older prisoners has received closer scrutiny in penological research, with Crawley and Sparks (2005) coining the term ‘institutional thoughtlessness’ to describe how older prisoners are disadvantaged by prison infrastructure , prison regime, and the prison staff culture (Crawley 2005). Accordingly , as a result of poor treatment and conditions, ‘older prisoners’ have been recognised as a group for whom imprisonment amounts to a ‘double punishment’ (PRT 2008). This has prompted, inter alia, a dialogue about establishing a ‘geronto-penitentiary policy’ , including a discussion on whether older prisoners should be integrated or segregated from the general prison population in specialised units. As we will see later in this book, this discussion is hardly resolved in the existing body of literature. Rather, there appears to be an absence of well-grounded empirical and theoretical research scrutinising and comparing existing initiatives, which is addressed by this book.

Despite a growing attention for an older segment of the prisoner population , a full-fledged joint scientific interest in later life and imprisonment still seems far from established. To date, existing penological studies focussing on older prisoners tend to view ageing mostly through a negative and fixed lens as a result of which these individuals remain largely disempowered. Less traditional gerontological scholarship , by contrast, has learned to focus on aspects of ageing , which included ‘positive’ and enriching aspects such as coping, agency, and meaning in life . This duality is the common thread tying together the different chapters of this book. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of age(ing) in the prison realm, the limited body of existing literature—that has yet to incorporate many insights of gerontology —will be further developed with a view to an older prisoner population (cf. for a brief overview : Wahidin and Aday 2005; as well as other instances : Crawley and Sparks 2005; Doron 2007). Conversely, gerontologists in turn have tended to fail to investigate the nature of punishment of older adults’ deviation from norms . From this it follows that, within other residential settings such as nursing homes , the most extreme and violent cases remain to fall between the cracks of the system and of our scientific attention. Whilst this topic falls outside the scope of this book, it provides food for thought and gives impetus to further advance the study of punishment and old age. The added value of this book is that it advances the frontiers of different disciplines by integrating a penological gaze, which translates into the desire to study the specific pains and vulnerabilities of older adults in prisons, with a gerontological gaze that examines gains for older prisoners and deconstructs the complexity and heterogeneity of their experiences by looking at many dimensions of age .

Studying the Older Prisoner: The Belgian Case

What prompted this study? As in other Western countries, the number of prisoners in later life has risen sharply in Belgium in recent years: according to the annual penitentiary statistics of the Council of Europe (SPACE I Statistics 2007–2013; Aebi and Delgrande 2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2014a, b), the ‘stock’ of ‘older’ inmates (i.e. 60+) has increased annually with an average of around 12%. The ageing Belgian prisoner population has increased greatly in number over the past years: the prison population aged 60 or more has virtually doubled between 2007 and 2013. In this period, the absolute number of prisoners aged 60+ rose from 248 to 486. Although older prisoners still remained a minority in Belgian prisons (ranging from slightly under 2% for 65+ to 4% for 60+ of the total Belgian prison population ), the numbers suggest that is still an ongoing trend, and as such, prisons as societal institutions should address current and future challenges in terms of dealing with more ageing prisoners.

Although the overall number of prisoners (‘TPP’) has also increased, the graph below indicates that the number of prisoners aged 60 or more (‘EP’) has soared (cf. table below). In comparison , from 2007 to 2013, the general Belgian population minus the total prison population (GP minus TPP) has grown with an average of 0.79% per year (Statistics Belgium, Statbel). Similarly, the total number of prisoners minus the elderly prisoner population (‘TPP minus EP’) annually increased with 4.04% on average, whereas the elderly prisoner population (‘EP’) increased with an average of 11.90% within the same period. In sum, the increase in the relative number of elderly prisoners is slightly under 50%, whereas, on average, their absolute numbers have increased with about 11% per year. This information has been presented in graph form below (Fig. 1.1):

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Fig. 1.1

Evolution of the Belgian prison population (60+) between 2007 and 2013

Whilst it is likely that older inmates will remain a relative minority in most prisons, the underlying social and penal mechanisms behind this evolution suggest that their absolute numbers will continue to rise. Belgian prison policy has, to a certain extent, become more aware of the importance of this phenomenon and the specific challenges it can raise to existing prison regimes . This has resulted in the creation of two specialised units for ‘elderly prisoners or disabled persons’ (Mistiaen et al. 2017).² This presented a significant opportunity for comparative empirical research by conducting an ethnographic research into the meaning of imprisonment for older prisoners in two disparate Belgian prison settings: i.e. an integrated prison on the one hand and a more specialised unit on the other hand. Not only does this book reveal more about older prisoners in Belgium, it will also develop and illustrate a way of studying older prisoners that can be applied worldwide.

The Fieldwork

The study that forms the basis for this book focussed on the meaning of imprisonment for the older prisoner.³ The starting point of this book was the acceptance that there are multiple social realities; hence, multiple meanings are ascribed to the older prisoner’s experience. Their search, which is underpinned by social constructivism, allows consideration of multiple realities. It thus attempts to document the meanings , experiences, and perceptions of the participants, considering that ‘reality’ cannot be merely constructed by the inquirer. Bearing this in mind, it seems more appropriate to consider this research as an exchange of dialogue between the researcher and the participants. The study of meaning for the older prisoner, considered through one’s lived experiences , could only be captured by embedding oneself in the own environment of the older prisoner. This was accomplished by undertaking an ethnographic study, which has been adopted in the social sciences as:

The study of groups of people in their natural setting, typically involving the researcher being present for extended periods of time in order to collect data systematically about their daily activities and the meanings they attach to them. (Noaks and Wincup 2004)

The study adopted a multi-method ethnographic approach, combining formal and informal conversations with multi-site participant observation and shadowing. The field was entered with an open mind but not an empty head (Lewis-Beck et al. 2003), and a reflexive stance was adopted throughout the entire study. The fieldwork was completed after spending a total of one year in two prison sites, both located in the Flemish Region of Belgium, where the highest concentrations of prisoners aged 65 years and older were housed. When studying such a ‘hidden population’ that is relatively small and is geographically dispersed throughout the prison system , we had to ensure that such an intensive long-term immersion in the field would yield a greater understanding of the topic. The prison settings were also selected for their exemplary value of the work presented, as enablers of building a knowledge base for integrating and segregating the older prisoner. I spent a total of eight months in the first prison setting (hereinafter denoted as ‘P1’), which comprised one of the largest prisons in Belgium, where older prisoners were integrated into the general prison population and a medical centre yet no specialist accommodation was available. In addition to this, I spent four months at the ‘gero-medical unit’ of a second prison (hereinafter denoted as ‘P2’), where frail older and ill or disabled prisoners were segregated from other prisoners. This very succinct description of research settings is complemented by a thick description of both prison contexts, as provided in Chaps. 3 and 4.

In both field sites, every prisoner having reached the chronological a ge of 65⁴ at the time of the fieldwork was sought to participate in the study.⁵ As a result of my long immersion in the day-to-day prison life , I had the opportunity to fully and intensively engage with a total of twenty older prisoners, mainly men.⁶ Following the suggestion of O’Reilly (2009), I made efforts to talk with anyone and everyone, of all types, personalities, and roles in the field. As a result, I quickly came to learn that also younger prisoners , prison visitors, and prison staff members all provided a valuable source of information and provided meaningful insights during fieldwork conversations and observations. It seems more accurate, then, to describe this as an ‘ongoing sampling’ process (O’Reilly 2009). As a result, prison officers and nurses and some ‘younger’ prisoners became de facto included in the ethnography as well. Data gathered from observing and conversing with these actors were incorporated in the analysis to the extent that it contributed to a greater understanding of the meanings attached to imprisonment in later life, e.g. via interactions with the older prisoner, or lack thereof. It should be noted that prison staff placed greater emphasis on the ‘deficit model’ of ageing (Venegas 2019), by viewing old age mostly in terms of loss and decline . This offered little scope for examining the strengths and different dimensions of the ageing prisoner from their point of view. Meaningful informed consent was obtained relationally and was viewed as part of the ongoing close relationship that was developed between the research subjects and the researcher (Kendall and Halliday 2014). Against the backdrop of our research philosophy, there was no a priori exclusion of people with cognitive deficits from participating at the ethnographic interviews, although it was occasionally frowned upon in the field. The common assumption that people diagnosed with (symptoms of) dementia are ‘empty shells’ (Hellström et al. 2007: 608; Moore and Hollett 2003) and therefore could not produce any useful nor meaningful answers was as such strongly reflected by the position of certain prison staff members as well as fellow prisoners vis-à-vis certain research subjects with frailty . I tried to establish a safe context by, inter alia, engaging in conversations in a surrounding that was familiar and comfortable to the participant (Beuscher and Grando 2009: 3). Following on the conversations, Clarke and Keady (2002: 38) suggest that a continuing interest in the person as an individual after (the more formal part of) the interview has finished is essential if a lasting positive impression is to be created, and an instrumental ‘hit-and-run’ approach should be avoided at any rate (Hellström et al. 2007: 612). My time in the field was used to establish good relationships, build rapport, and foster relationships based on trust, warmth, and empathy, as a prerequisite to reduce power inequalities (Hellström et al. 2007) and to improve accessibility to the researcher.

Depending on the cognitive , the social, and the physical abilities of the participants and the opportunities created by the particular environments under study, more focus was placed either on the observational (in P2) or on the verbal (P1) methods of collecting data. Triangulation in this ethnographic study mainly refers to the combined methods of gathering data, such as participant observation, shadowing, and ethnographic interviewing, between which I shifted across time, place, and situation. Miscellaneous in-depth interviews with the key or core participants (i.e. a total of 20 older prisoners for both P1 and P2) and a handful of gatekeepers (few younger prisoner-servants and prison staff members) were conducted and tape-recorded. The fieldwork entails a total of twelve months, counted at an average of three full days of attendance a week, of participant observation and shadowing and draws mostly from impromptu in situ communication with more than 20 prisoners, more than 30 prison officers , and around 10 prison nurses . An open and undisguised form of participant observation, one of the main methods employed in the study, was employed to partially immerse myself in the field sites. Observing, and taking part in a range of activities, from the mundane aspects of daily prison life to more exceptional episodes has enabled a deeper understanding of older prisoners within the context of daily prison life and prison culture . To a smaller extent, participants were also subjected to the shadowing technique, as illustrated by the following excerpt taken from the field notes:

Gerald [one of the older prisoners] proudly tells everyone about me that I am ‘his shadow’. (Field notes P1, April 2014)

Shadowing allowed me to also experience, see, and feel things as much as possible from the perspective of the participant. Being neither imprisoned nor professionally involved with working prison life , I have never been a full participant or fixed aspect of prison life . In hindsight, my presence in the field can be best described as ‘the accepted stranger’ (O’Reill 2009: 176).

Tolich (2004: 101) has used the metaphor of an iceberg to help us in our understanding of confidentiality. The tip above the surface, he argues, relates to what is covered by the traditional notion of confidentiality (which he terms external confidentiality), i.e. ensuring that the participant remains anonymous in the final report (Tolich 2004: 101). In our study, we have attended to external confidentiality by acknowledging that we had knowledge on what the informants (regardless of their capacity ) had disclosed but promised not to identify them in the final report of the research findings (Tolich 2004: 101). Furthermore, confidentiality was safeguarded during the fieldwork by protecting and not disclosing what each insider said in a private interview vis-à-vis other insiders as well as outsiders (with the sole exception of the supervisor, cf. ‘peer debriefing’). Below the surface then lies internal confidentiality, i.e. the ability for research subjects involved in the study to recognise each other in the final publication (Tolich 2004: 101). In contrast, internal confidentiality, which is also generally known as ‘deductive disclosure’ in specialist literature within the domain of qualitative research (Kaiser 2009: 1632; Tolich 2004: 101–106), covers the identification of an individual’s identity or group in a research report by using known characteristics, traits, or specifics of that individual or group. It was not until after the research process, notably during the stage of the report writing, that we were faced with the issue of internal confidentiality. I decided to use fictive names and identities in the book, which brings to life the informants without reducing them to numbers or abstract terms.

Making sense of the data constituted an eclectic process using a combination of strategies of analyses, such as axial coding, descriptive analysis, pattern analysis, narrative analysis, value analysis, and the constant comparison method, a strategy that dovetails with what has been termed as ‘thick analysis’ (Van Staa and Evers 2016).

Structure Outline

The book is made up of seven chapters (including the introduction and the conclusion) wherein penological insights are integrated with gerontological insights, as the ‘older prisoner’ is subjected to both the experience of imprisonment and of growing older. The key research question that has driven the research project ‘What is distinctive about (the experiences of) the older prisoner?’ has been subdivided into three topical questions that run central to the book. This results in the following structure:

Chapter 2 investigates our understanding of ‘the older prisoner’ and lays a foundation for understanding the remainder of the book. It examines ‘the older prisoner’ as a constructed category that is accompanied with distinct characteristics and specific knowledge determining the way we think about, scientifically approach, and respond to this category. In this second chapter, the reader becomes familiar with an interdisciplinary framework, underpinned by some empirical data on the older prisoner, which is further developed in the following chapters.

Chapters 3 and 4 are centralised around older prisoners’ experiences of daily life in prison. Both chapters investigate in what way the prison environment is shaped for the older prisoner and how this is experienced. The underlying notion of ‘experience’ refers here to older prisoners’ lived experiences in prison and recognises the state of being confined in, and to, a prison environment as a particular type of experience (‘Erlebnis’) (van Manen 2016). These chapters pay attention to place, context, and actors. By describing the research settings in greater detail, this also captures part of the methodology. These chapters provide an analysis of the material prison world (Chap. 3) and the social prison world (Chap. 4) and its impact on the older prisoner, which is examined empirically for both an integrated and a segregated prison setting in Belgium.

Chapters 5 and 6 investigate how older prisoners integrate these experiences into their lives and give meaning to their lives. Both chapters deal with empirical data on how older prisoners face the combined experience of imprisonment and that of growing older. This is further broken down into their experiences of coping (Chap. 5) and their patterns of generativity (Chap. 6). These chapters draw on older prisoners’ life experiences (‘Lebenserfahrungen’), which are more inclusive than lived experiences (‘Erlebnisse’), as life experience (‘Erfahrung’) is the accumulation of lived experiences and the understandings and sense that can be made of these experiences (van Manen 2016).

Chapter 7, the conclusion, summarises the core message of the book and discusses the broader implications of the findings. It highlights aspects that are useful for policymakers, scholars, and all those interested in learning about imprisonment in later life.

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Footnotes

1

Terms such as ‘elders’ or ‘the elderly’ to denote adults with an advanced chronological age are considered as pejorative and reductionist (Falconer and O’Neill 2007; Wahidin and Aday 2005). Where these terms are used, they have been taken directly from the relevant, mostly antiquated, literature. Whilst some recent studies on prisoners in later life still employ this term, I have sought to avoid these terms, where possible. In this work, the following terms or descriptors have been used interchangeably: ‘old(er)’, ‘age(ing)’, ‘aged’, ‘of advanced age’, and ‘in late(r) life’.

2

See also the parliamentary question of Mrs. De wit (2010) addressing the ageing population in Belgian prisons (No. 1336) to the Minister of Justice. In the respective answer to this question, given by the State Secretary, the establishment of adapted celling for wheelchair-bound prisoners, the medical departments of three prisons, and the two specialised prison units ‘for older prisoners’ have been put forward as part of an adequate approach to an ageing prisoner population in Belgium.

3

The research project was funded by the Research