Condemned to Loneliness – Elderly People in Penitentiary Isolation and the Determinants of their Social Re-adaptation
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to describe one of the determinants of social re-adaptation of a special category of prisoners, namely elderly people. Since very few studies devoted to the determinants of their social re-adaptation have been published, one of the most neglected areas of research is a sense of loneliness perceived as a barrier obstructing positive re-adaptation. Elderly people experience double stigma: of age and related psychological, social and health constraints and of an ex-deviant – a person leaving a place of isolation. A sense of loneliness and of solitude to a great extent hampers re-adaptation and reintegration in an open environment. Unfortunately, the analyses constituting a part of scientific research as well as theories of social rehabilitation focus mainly on youth. Modern times, along with their characteristic individualism and anonymity are not favourable to old people. The issue of loneliness and its consequences for the lives of people in this age group (whose population in all societies within our cultural and civilization area continuously grows) seems to be a vital research problem requiring multi-dimensional analyses.
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