Growing old in prison: "With a long sentence, you know you could die here."

BarcelonaJust as society has aged, so too has the number of elderly people behind bars, resulting in a rising average prison age. Only 1% of incarcerated individuals are over 70, but this figure is double what it was fifteen years ago. However, the total number of prisoners has decreased during this period. Among those facing this stage of life in prison are inmates serving very long sentences, as well as those with shorter terms or those who committed crimes later in life. Various risk factors converge in prison, accelerating aging, leading experts to believe that a person ages much earlier in prison than in freedom.

Prison sources explain that premature aging among inmates is due to several factors. On the one hand, the stress associated with incarceration can cause neuropsychological changes that affect memory or behavior, and on the other hand, they also mention distress, hopelessness, and the risk of suicidal behavior. Among inmates, it is also more common than in the general population to have histories of social exclusion, substance abuse, and to have suffered violence.

Most older prisoners continue to live in a regular prison module—like Benjamín, who is sixty years old and incarcerated in Brians 2—or in open regime modules, like Mari Carmen and Esperanza, who prefers to use a pseudonym. Both sleep every night in the Wad-Ras women's prison in Barcelona, ​​but spend the day outside. Like 35% of prisoners over sixty, they are on semi-liberty. The proportion of inmates in the third stage of the prison system reaches 40% from the age of eighty, double the rate among all prisoners in Catalonia.

However, when a health complication or reduced mobility prevents someone from living in a regular cell block, inmates end up in the infirmary, like Víctor, who also uses an alias and is imprisoned in Brians 2. "Entering prison is like a grieving process, because you're aware that you've lost something in five years," and he will finish serving his sentence in 2033. "I'm in the place where the most prisoners die. With a long sentence, you know you could die here, that you'll grow old." In the Brians 2 infirmary, he says he met Fèlix Millet, and now he wonders if José Luis Ábalos will grow old in prison. He says he listens to the radio a lot and goes to the library every day to read or use the computers and check the newspapers.

A spinal cord injury and pancreatic cancer significantly altered his independence while he was already imprisoned, and he says that if he still has a few years left to live when he is released, he would like to spend them somewhere isolated, like an island or a cabin, "like a hermit." "I don't have the same aspirations for when I get out as others do. I try to be realistic. There's a stage of my life in society that I've missed out on, like a child who skipped stages and didn't have a childhood," he explains.

Currently, prisoners over 60 years old make up 5% of the total prison population, compared to 2.9% fifteen years ago. On the last day of 2025, there were 9,159 prisoners in Catalonia, 479 of whom were over 60. In 2010, the total prison population was higher—10,532—but fewer were over 60: 304.

The aging of the prison population also impacts the healthcare needs within prisons. A study conducted among inmates in the nine prisons of Catalonia confirmed "significant differences" in the aging of the prison population compared to the general population. The authors of the study, published in 2023 and led by Dr. Andrés Marco, attributed this primarily to a greater burden of risk factors and chronic illnesses that appear more frequently. Among other findings, they observed that cardiovascular risk factors are present among prisoners at much younger ages than in the general population. In the group of 4,300 prisoners studied, 40% of women between 20 and 24 years old and 30% of men in that age group had at least one cardiovascular risk factor, while the average among the general population is 20%.

There is also more smoking in prison—three out of four inmates smoke—and the same study indicates that incarceration worsens sedentary lifestyles and increases the rate of obesity. HIV is six times more common among incarcerated individuals than among the general population, and there is also a higher incidence of psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, most inmates come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and already have a higher incidence of illnesses before entering prison.

Esperanza, who was released on parole at Wad-Ras prison, says that back pain makes going to and from the prison increasingly difficult. It was even worse when the prison was closed all day. "The years take their toll. Now my body aches, but my soul ached when I had young children and couldn't go out," she recounts. She had her youngest daughter while incarcerated and says that when she was at Brians prison and they lived together all day, she treated the younger inmates like her own daughters.

Mari Carmen, who was previously in Brians prison, also sleeps every night in the open section of Barcelona's women's prison. She says she was "the black sheep of a family of nurses and lawyers," but she quickly learned her lesson. "They see you're older, they try to blackmail you with cigarettes, but you learn your lesson. They think they can humiliate you... If you let them, of course. I didn't," she says. She's been in prison for 26 months, arriving every day at 9 a.m. and returning every night. She's on the verge of being granted parole and has just found a job.

19 prisoners are over 80 years old

There are now only 19 prisoners in Catalonia over the age of 80. There are also 101 in their seventies and 368 between 61 and 70. The oldest person incarcerated in Catalonia is in the infirmary at Brians 2 prison, where eight people around 50 years old, seven between 61 and 70, and four over 70 also live. There is also one person over 70 in the prison hospital in Terrassa. Prison sources explain that inmates are usually the most interested in maintaining an active daily routine by participating in various activities within the prison. There are sports activities aimed at older people, and they can also attend occupational workshops, art workshops, or the library, a quiet place frequented by older prisoners.

Regarding the reasons for their imprisonment, the most common among those over 60 are crimes against sexual freedom. Sexual assault is the primary offense for which 24% of prisoners over sixty are convicted, while among inmates of all ages, these offenses account for 9.5%.

In contrast, property crimes are much less prevalent among the sentences of older prisoners (20%), half the rate they represent among the general prison population. Drug offenses account for 15% of sentences for those over 60, a rate very similar to that of the total prison population. However, homicides are more common among those over 60 (15.5%) than among the total prison population (10.6%), as they carry longer sentences.