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Abstract -
Aging people in prison and post-prison release pose significant yet surmountable challenges in satisfying age-specific educational, training, employment, financial and civic participation rights. This descriptive study of 677 older prisoners, aged 50+, in a statewide prison system provides a historical analysis of past and current individual and social structural level factors that influence the prisoners' economic and employment prospects after being released from prison. Results highlight the diversity within this population based on socio-demographics, work histories, family obligations, health status, and legal histories that influence the level of support experienced post incarceration. These findings suggest the need for comprehensive services that provide prison and post-prison release education, vocational training, and housing and job placement for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated older adults. Strategies for providing culturally responsive tools and resources to support education, training, and employment of formerly incarcerated older adults are discussed.
Keywords: older adults, aging, employment, incarceration, economic rights, cumulative disadvantage, life course perspective
The aging prison population crisis is gaining international attention as researchers, journalists, and human and civil rights organizations detail the rapidly growing rates of older adults in prison and their resettlement plight post-prison release, including histories of unemployment and poverty (American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], 2012; Human Rights Watch [HRW], 2012). Most incarcerated adults aged 50 and older under United States custody are male (93%) and disproportionately from minority groups (e.g., African American (32%) and Hispanic (14%) with histories of poverty (Sabol & Couture, 2008; Shimkus, 2004). A collective profile of aging people in prison reveals a group of older adults who have commonly experienced a lifetime of social inequities based on personal characteristics such as age, race/ethnicity, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, physical and mental disabilities and substance abuse histories, as well as social structural factors including poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and histories of having lived in unsafe neighborhoods. These multi-dimensional factors have implications for bias or discrimination in employment, which are exacerbated by their incarceration status.
The incarcerated population is often classified as 'older adult' or 'elderly' beginning in their 50s, as opposed to the traditional retirement age of 65 (Falter, 2006). This age differentiation is attributed to a process of accelerated aging in which the average prisoner may have a reduced health status...