ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the complicated relationship of those social spaces to interrogate ageing and the relationship of veterans and assesses emergent research. The relationship of ageing and the study of veterans of military service who have offended is uncharted territory in critical social work. Ageing and identity have undergone significant exploration by gerontologists and others to advance understandings of identity formulation. Discourses of ageing and identity circulate across a variety of texts and sources, be they media discourses, medical discourses, political discourse and economic discourse. Public, political and academic discourses on ageing, offending and the veteran are positioned. The shaping of societal narratives of crime have invariably focused upon the sources of risk and danger being seated among specific social groups across the lifecourse. The chapter concludes a case for an agenda for critical social work that takes seriously the experiences of older veterans in the criminal justice system.
