Behind the Bars of Time
Research by VUB professor Humblet takes centre stage in a Canvas documentary
Worldwide, the number of older people in detention is rising. But what does it mean to grow old in a place where freedom, time and the future are under pressure? Through the CAGED research project, VUB criminologist Diete Humblet is investigating how people can continue to find meaning in their lives as they grow older behind bars. One of the researchers who contributed to *Behind the Bars of Time* is Diete Humblet, a criminologist, ERC Grantee and VUB professor.
Research into ageing in detention still often takes a biomedical perspective, focusing on health, physical decline and care. “Gerontology, the multidisciplinary study of ageing, pays scant attention to the context of detention in Europe,” says Humblet. “We want to build a bridge between gerontology and penology, the study of punishment and imprisonment. In doing so, we’re looking specifically at the question of meaning: whether and how, as an individual in prison, you can continue to find meaning in your life.”
For people serving long prison sentences, this question becomes increasingly pressing. “They see the years slipping away. It is not just about ageing healthily, but also about the hope of a meaningful life, whether inside or outside prison walls.”
Humblet has been researching this topic for many years. Among other things, she conducted an extensive correspondence with older people in detention and carried out ethnographic research in the prisons of Merksplas and Bruges. This revealed that their needs are particularly diverse and that prisons are struggling with the question of how to address them.
With CAGED – Ageing in the Carceral Environment: The Existential Dimensions, for which Humblet received an ERC Starting Grant, she aims to take this a step further. The five-year project combines interviews with quantitative research and aims to develop a methodology to map existential meaning-making amongst older people in detention. In addition to various detention regimes in Belgium, a specific facility for older people in Germany is also being studied.
In addition to Humblet, the team comprises postdoctoral researcher Leen Vandevelde and PhD researcher Eos Reichow. Together, they aim to bridge the gap between criminology and gerontology and lay the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field of research: geronto-penology.
“We want to uncover the difference between the strategies people use to try to survive in detention and what really matters to them,” says Humblet. “Ultimately, we are trying to understand a simple yet difficult question: what happens to the meaning of life when you grow older behind bars?”
That reality will also be brought to life for the general public this evening. Canvas will be broadcasting *Behind the Bars of Time *, a documentary in which filmmaker Stijn Geenen followed the lives of older people, often in need of care, at Merksplas Prison. During his preliminary research, he also spoke to Humblet and read her book *The Older Prisoner*.
“The documentary takes people into a world that remains completely closed off to most,” she says. “You not only see that people grow older in prison too, but you’re confronted with the question of what that means. Not just physically, but also as human beings.”
It is precisely this question that will be central to CAGED in the coming years. Because ageing doesn’t stop at the prison gates.
Further information:
Prof. Dr Diete Humblet
Principal Investigator, CAGED
Crime & Society Research Group (CRiS)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Frans Steenhoudt
