Aging, time, and punishment

Therefore, and in dialogue with critical carceral studies literature, this paper seeks to understand how older adults incarcerated in a Brazilian prison attribute meaning to their sentences and perceive time. It presents a qualitative case study based on semi-structured interviews with 12 sentenced male prisoners, aged 60 and over, confined in a prison in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. This primary data was complemented by secondary data provided by the prison’s administration regarding the profile of the older prisoner population, which totaled 28 individuals. A key finding of this research is that all interviewed older men entered the system at or near the Brazilian legal old age (60+), rather than when they were younger. This is a striking pattern which diverges from a scenario of “aging behind bars” that is prevalent in Northern research on older prisoners and aging carceral populations. Combining their current age and sentence length projects a release date beyond the Brazil's average life expectancy of 76 years. Older Brazilian prisoner participants reported pre-incarceration life courses characterized by long-term engagement in informal and precarious labor and extensive family formation. The analysis reveals how the pains of imprisonment are intrinsically linked to the passage of time, specifically the profound loss of the time that would be lived in the outside world.