ABSTRACT
Older adults seem more adversely affected by imprisonment than their younger counterparts, indicating that the experience of imprisonment and the struggle to access basic rights and services is age-associated. The different dimensions of age developed in gerontology help us to better understand this complexity and its implications for penological research, human rights concerns and prison policy. The question to be raised from a human rights perspective is whether imprisonment at old age is in itself compatible with human dignity. Their advanced age and the fact that their sentences exceed their expected lifespan, are seen as amounting de facto to a death sentence and functional dimension (capacities), the psychological (autonomy, privacy) and social dimension (social support, social integration) are put forward as significant sources for older adults to live a meaningful life on a day-to-day basis.
