What is it like to grow old in prison?

Interdisciplinary ERC project joins Max Planck Institute

How do individuals navigate aging within the confines of prison? And how can elderly inmates discover meaning in their lives? These are the central questions explored by Diete Humblet in her research project, 'Carceral Ageing in the Carceral Environment: The Existential Dimensions' (CAGED), which has been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council. In May, Diete Humblet joined the Department of Criminology at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg.

The research project ‘Carceral Ageing in the Carceral Environment: The Existential Dimensions’ (CAGED) investigates the experience of aging within prison. The leading mind behind the project is the Belgian scientist Diete Humblet, who draws on the two disciplines of gerontology and criminology.

“When we think of older people in prison or people who grow old in prison, we still tend to look at it from a narrow biomedical perspective,” Humblet reports. So far, gerontology has hardly addressed the topic of imprisonment in old age, at least not here in Europe. Humblet wants to change this with her research project. “With CAGED, we can build a bridge between the gerontology of criminology and criminal law.’ One focus of the project will be the search for meaning. “We are investigating whether and how people in prison can find meaning in their lives. This is often a challenge for those who age in prison. They watch the years pass and the hope of a meaningful life, either inside or outside the prison walls, becomes more and more important,” explains Humblet.

Since May, the Belgian scientist has been based at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, specifically in the Department of Criminology. She will conduct part of her research from Freiburg in the future. “I look forward to exchanging ideas with the head of the Department of Criminology, Jean-Louis van Gelder, and his team in Freiburg,” says Humblet.

The scientist has received an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council for her CAGED project. The ERC Starting Grant is aimed at promising young scientists in Europe who are at the beginning of an independent research career but who also have the potential to become research leaders. Together with Humblet, four researchers in the Institute’s Department of Criminology are now receiving prestigious funding from the European Research Council.

Diete Humblet holds a Master of Laws from the University of Antwerp and a Master in Criminological Sciences from the University of Ghent. She has been working in the Department of Criminology at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels since 2013, where she did a PhD in Criminology.