Veterans Aging in Place Behind Bars: A Structured Living Program That Works

Although the absolute proportion of veterans compared with nonveterans in state and federal prison continues to decline, the number of older adult veterans who are imprisoned is rising. A multifaceted structured living program for geriatric prisoners in Nevada provides for the psychological, physical, and spiritual needs of aging incarcerated veterans. We hypothesized that the older adult veterans group would show more evidence of psychological and physical dysfunction, poor adjustment, and more life dissatisfaction than nonveterans because of high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression among this subgroup. Our second hypothesis was that both the veteran and nonveteran older adult prisoner groups would report that they benefited from the True Grit treatment program. Finally, because substantial components of True Grit program were designed to treat combat-related issues, we hypothesized that the older adult veteran group would be more satisfied with the True Grit program than the nonveteran group. Evaluation results from 111 inmates indicated high life satisfaction and daily physical functioning, low psychological distress (depression, anxiety, and somatization), moderate prison context stress, and extremely high satisfaction with this program. The True Grit program provides a supportive environment fostering more adaptive coping, thereby ameliorating a certain amount of prison stress, while promoting a healthier aging in place experience for the elder inmates.