With a growing number of older people incarcerated in Australia and globally, AAG’s Prisons background paper addresses the issues they face when leaving prison.
Older adults ageing in prison have complex, and unique, health, social and aged care needs. There is a pressing need to better understand their experiences to enable better transition planning and post-release support, so they have better opportunities to age adaptively and with dignity.
In this paper, we summarise the key issues faced by older people who are leaving, or who have left, prison and need health, aged care and/or social services. We explain the importance of transition planning and highlight the barriers that older incarcerated people face in accessing health, social and aged care supports when, and after, leaving prison. Recommendations and priority next steps are summarised in a separate document.