Inside The Senior Alliance: Aging and the Justice System with Rodlescia Sneed (Ep 1.35)
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In this episode, Emma Case, Planning and Advocacy Specialist with The Senior Alliance interviews Rodlescia Sneed, Assistant Professor of Gerontology at Wayne State University. They talk about her work with aging adults, especially those who have been incarcerated and then released. Some of the issues are the lack of understanding that seniors who have been released from the justice system have a much harder time getting services, housing, and even jobs, once they get back into society. Professor Sneed discusses how Area Agencies on Aging can do a better job in getting resources to help seniors involved in the justice system and how listeners can help to advocate for those seniors. Important information!
Produced by The Senior Alliance and Blazing Kiss Media
Transcription
Emma Case (00:00):
Welcome to Inside the Senior Alliance, a podcast exploring resources and issues in the field of aging. I’m Emma Case, Planning and Advocacy Specialist at the Senior Alliance, the Area Agency on Aging, serving Western and Southern Wayne County. Joining me today is Rodlescia Sneed, Assistant Professor of Gerontology at Wayne State University. Rodlescia, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your background in gerontology?
Rodlescia Sneed (00:21):
I’m an assistant professor at Wayne State and I’m what’s called a social gerontologist. Gerontologists in general are interested in the health and wellbeing of older adults, but I have a particular interest in social factors that impact the health and wellbeing of older adults. And so a lot of the work I do is really focused on understanding the social needs of older adults and then working with community and institutional partners in order to make improvements in the social lives of older people.
Emma Case (00:51):
Some of your research has been focused on the impact and involvement of the justice system on aging adults. What does this research entail?
Rodlescia Sneed (00:58):
So we know that the US prison population has aged rapidly in the last few decades. If we look at the time between 1999 and 2016, for example, the number of older adults who had justice system involvement increased by more than 280%. And what we also know is that the justice system has not been necessarily designed for older people. And many people who work in the justice system don’t know a lot about the needs of older adults. And so a lot of the work that I do is really focused on what are the needs of older people while they’re in prison and also after they return to community settings. What we see is that when people leave jail or prison as older people, they’re much older physically than people who may be 15 or 20 years older than them. So they have more chronic disease, they have more mobility issues, but the prison system isn’t really designed to help address those needs. And so what I really try to do is to work with partners to identify those needs and then to address those needs such that older people who’ve had justice system involvement can continue to have happy, healthy lives.
Emma Case (02:10):
What are some of the challenges and struggles of older adults after the involvement in the justice system?
Rodlescia Sneed (02:15):
One of the biggest struggles that we see is that having criminal justice system involvement goes with you for the rest of your life. So if you’re incarcerated, for example, when you’re 35 for a violent crime, when you get out of prison, that has implications for your ability to get a job, your ability to find a safe place to live, your ability to be able to sustain yourself financially and age only compounds that. So it’s already difficult for older people to live independently on their own. It’s already difficult for older people to find jobs. And so when you add that justice system involvement on top of just being an older person, you really see that people who are older who’ve had justice system involvement have a lot of problems going back to community.
Emma Case (03:00):
What’s the impact of some of these challenges that you addressed on older adults?
Rodlescia Sneed (03:04):
So what we see is that, you know, older people in general have more difficulty getting good jobs, for example, when they get out of prison. And so as a result, it means they don’t have income in order to be able to sustain themselves. Housing and security is especially difficult for a justice involved older person because it’s difficult to find. Housing in general of an older person. Senior housing is always very full, and then it’s just very difficult to get providers to accept you to receive services because of that justice system involvement. So as an older person navigating the world after incarceration, it’s very difficult to find adequate resources, especially if you have this justice system involvement.
Emma Case (03:46):
Based on your research and experience. How can area agencies on aging like The Senior Alliance, play a role in aging adults, whether they’re soon to be released, recently released, or may have been released in the past and need aging assistance?
Rodlescia Sneed (03:59):
One thing that I think is really important is that we educate human service providers on the difficulties that older adults face when they go back to community settings. You know, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and interviewing many service providers who serve older adults, and they don’t necessarily have an awareness of those long-term consequences of incarceration. Many of the assessments and intake forms that human service providers do with older people don’t ask about incarceration and service providers often aren’t aware of resources specifically for people who have been incarcerated. So I think that a lot of the service providers need education and also the programs that our service providers traditionally offer to older people need to be tailored in some instances such that people who have justice system involvement are able to connect specifically to resources that might be available to them because of their justice system involvement.
Emma Case (04:57):
What can our listeners who may not be involved in area agencies on aging do to be an advocate for these adults?
Rodlescia Sneed (05:03):
If a listener’s not a part of an area agency on aging, but they want to be an advocate, I certainly think that getting involved in policy related work or advocacy related work specific to justice involved individuals is really important. There are a lot of activists that are working towards things like compassionate release for older prisoners who clearly are not a risk to society yet are being burdened by continuing to be in prison for many decades. So getting involved in some of the advocacy work designed to improve the lives of justice involved older people is a good first step. I also think educating the people that you’re around and the people that work with you about the long-term impact of incarceration is important. So understanding for yourself what it means to be an older person and what it means to be a justice involved person. Going back to community is really important.
Emma Case (05:56):
If someone wants to know more about your research or the topic of aging in the justice system, where can they go to find this information?
Rodlescia Sneed (06:04):
There’s a lot of information about my research on the Institute of Gerontology website at www.iog.wayne.edu. My website link is there where you can see a lot of the papers that I’ve written and the projects that my team is working on. So that’s probably the best place to learn more.
Emma Case (06:23):
Rodlescia, thanks for joining me on this episode. This was really great.
Rodlescia Sneed (06:26):
Thank you.
Emma Case (06:26):
If you have any questions about our services or programs The Senior Alliance offers, you can call us at 734-722-2830 or email us at info@thesenioralliance.org. Information about our agency or the programs and services we offer can be found on our website at www.thesenioralliance.org. On Facebook, we can be located by searching for the Senior Alliance. Finally, our Twitter handle is @AAA1C. I’m Emma Case. Thank you for listening to this episode of Inside the Senior Alliance.