As the global population of older adults in detention rises, understanding the experience of aging within the confines of prison becomes crucial. VUB criminologist and professor Diete Humblet is spearheading the CAGED research project, which investigates how individuals can continue to find meaning in their lives when freedom, time, and future are constrained.
The project aims to bridge gerontology (the study of aging) and penology (the study of punishment and incarceration), moving beyond a purely biomedical perspective. The focus is on existential meaning-making – whether and how individuals can find purpose in their lives while imprisoned, a question that becomes increasingly urgent for those serving long sentences.
Diete Humblet's extensive research includes correspondence with older detainees and ethnographic studies conducted in the prisons of Merksplas and Bruges. These investigations have highlighted the diverse needs of older prisoners and the challenges faced by correctional facilities in addressing them.
The five-year CAGED project (Ageing in the Carceral Environment: The Existential Dimensions), supported by an ERC Starting Grant, combines interviews with quantitative research to develop a methodology for mapping existential meaning among older detainees. The research encompasses various detention regimes in Belgium and a specific facility for older individuals in Germany.
The research team, including postdoctoral researcher Leen Vandevelde and doctoral researcher Eos Reichow, seeks to establish a new interdisciplinary field: geronto-penology. "We want to uncover the difference between the strategies people use to survive in detention and what truly matters to them," stated Humblet. "Ultimately, we are trying to understand a simple, yet difficult question: what happens to the meaning of life when you grow old behind bars?"
This reality will also be brought to a wider audience tonight with the broadcast of the documentary Achter de tralies van de tijd on Canvas. Filmmaker Stijn Geenen followed the lives of older, often care-dependent individuals in the Merksplas prison. During his preliminary research, he consulted Humblet and read her book, The Older Prisoner.
"The documentary allows people to enter a world that remains completely closed off for most," Humblet noted. "You see not only that people grow old in prison, but you are confronted with the question of what that means, not just physically, but as a human being."
This central question will continue to drive the CAGED project in the coming years, emphasizing that aging does not stop at the prison gates.
