On Thursday, April 10, a 65 -year -old man killed his 37 -year -old son after an argument in Toledo. Just three days ago, another 72 -year -old man had entered prison for his wife’s murder. In January they arrested an 87 -year -old woman who sold drugs from her window. And at the end of the year they arrested a 71 -year -old banks who swore that this was going to be his “last time.” Older criminals jump to the media due to their extraordinary character, but behind those cases there is usually a lack of vital alternatives, extreme economic needs or mental pathologies, such as dementia. In the first week of April there were 3,301 prisoners over 60 years in the prisons of the General State Administration, in which Basque or Catalonia is not included. The figure, which represents 6.6% of the penitentiary population, is small, but has been growing in recent decades, even above the aging rhythm of the population that lives in freedom.
“Among the prisoners we still find many of those of the so -called heroine generation, who began to commit crimes after the 80s and have continued to commit crimes; and who are multireincidents, because their means of life is the crime,” says Concepción Yagüe, former deputy director general of prisons. “But what could be able to attention, according to a work that we presented in 2017, is that in the population over 60 years almost 70% were primary criminals. This makes you ask you: ‘What is happening?” Says Yagüe, already retired, but who continues to do advice and investigating in this field. In all 2024, 639 people over 60 years of age, 4.2% of the total number of new inmates, according to data from penitentiary institutions, entered prison for the first time.
In this last investigation work, in which he participated with a group of experts from the Official College of Psychology of Western Andalusia, they studied the reasons for the late debut in the crime, with the starting point that the aging of the population did not explain in itself the great increase of imprisoned people over 60 years. After examining 50 cases of penalty of seven prisons of Western Andalusia, they offered some explanations to this phenomenon. “We find very successful people, as company directors, artists or a bank coordinator, and we wonder why, if they had had a successful socio -labor and family life, suddenly, they commit a crime of transcendence, whether gender violence or homicide, or against sexual freedom, which are the most frequent,” says
They performed psychological and forensic tests to this half hundred people imprisoned and compared the results with those of other similar ages that frequented day centers and made their lives freely. The results indicated that these people had a very high score in psychopathy or very significant scale with respect to the control group, and practically similar to that occurred in criminals in scientific literature, and, in turn, also found an evident deterioration in neurological performance (mainly those that imply prefrontal areas). “All life we know that the elderly say this of ‘I don’t shut up’, or people with Alzheimer’s symptoms who suddenly stick or shout or insult and say tacos, but they had not done so in their life. Hunger and the desire to eat. You have the drive, but you don’t have the brakes to inhibit it,” he explains. “The conclusion we took, in the absence of more studies, is that these trends were there, they were more similar to those of the criminals of a lifetime, but (that those people) had had protection factors, those who were, that they had made them avoid the crime,” explains Yagüe.
“The implication of people in crime begins with adolescence, it begins at 16, 17 years old and is decreasing with age in what we call dismissal,” says Antonia Linde, professor of criminology at the Oberta University of Catalonia. It is related to the level of self -control, biological and social changes, adding Linda, which links these behaviors with physical, sexual development or the increase in testosterone, in the case of men, something that transforms temperament and makes them more irascible. “The studies show that the majority of crimes are committed by between 4% and 7% of young people. This does not mean that the majority of young people are involved in crime, but that of the total crimes, most are committed by a very low percentage of adolescents,” he adds. With age, basically due to biological maturation and because social relations have also been established, more responsibilities at the family level, there is a partner or they plan to have children, there are less likely to commit crimes. In Yagüe’s research they found just the opposite, as if the elderly analyzed had returned to adolescence.
“The expected thing is that a 70 -year -old is not active in the crime. It can be given, because in everything there are exceptions,” says Santiago Redondo, professor of Psychology and Criminology at the University of Barcelona and an expert in evaluation and treatment of criminals. Redondo agrees that marginal crime, linked to crimes against property such as robberies or robberies, has an early start and descends with age, but establishes differentiations for example, with blood crimes, linked to the way of resolving conflicts or tension, and that they have a further age curve. “In these cases of older people would seek risk factors that make it remain in the crime, as a very large economic need, that their routine of life, their way of facing reality has not varied over time or does not know anything else, or mental pathologies.”
What in youth can be stimulating, as a robbery in which a lot of adrenaline occurs, ceases to be attractive with age because the risks begin to be seen. “I have known cases in which people of a certain age had their criminal vital routines, as something unique in their lives, then they occasionally committed a robbery, even with the purpose of returning to prison, because there they already had a context,” explains Redondo. Like there are risk factors, there are protection factors, which prevent the person from running hazards and falling into crime. “But there are people who, because of their trajectory, because they have no one, or family, or friends and that environment is the most favorable thing they have,” he says.
The men over 60 who were in jail in 2023 had mostly starred crimes against people, such as homicides, murders or gender violence (29%); against sexual freedom, such as sexual aggressions or exhibitionism (24%) and against public health such as drug trafficking (19%). In women, which do not reach 6%of the total, the most common are against public health (27%), of socioeconomic type, such as robberies or scams, (25%) and against people (24%).
When Concepción Yagüe went to work in Penitentiary Institutions, in the 1980s, he found many young people in prisons. “There were a lot of prisoners of 18, 25 years and there were specific prisons for them; the average of the penitentiary has aged with me,” he says. Now, the Penitentiary Center of Alcázar de San Juan, in Ciudad Real, is the reference to welcome older people without family relationship. Those over 60 represent 30%, 20 of their 70 prisoners. Spain is among the five countries with the highest prison age, which is 41 years, compared to the European average, which is 38, according to the latest statistics published by the Council of Europe with data of 2023. In 2017, the average age of the prison population in Spain was 39.8 years.
Yagüe also coordinated, together with a group of prison experts, the study Analysis of old age in the penitentiary environmentpublished in 2007 and in which this group of elderly was examined, whose growth was being exponential and that was neglected. The entire Spanish penitentiary population was taken as sample. After this work, instruction 8/2011 was promoted, with important measures that sought “comprehensive care” to the elderly. “Our main conclusion was that these people need very little, but they need it very much.”
In Spain, prisoners over 60 years, preventive and convicted, have gone from assuming 2.1% in 2006 to 5.7% in 2023, according to data from the General Council of the Judiciary. The percentage of people over 61 has passed in this period from 20.5% to 25.7%, according to the information of the National Statistics Institute.
In the investigation of the late debut in the crime, it is explained that the cases studied doubled the frequency in homicides or injuries (with a 16.3% incidence in the elderly, compared to 6.8% of the general population) and crimes against sexual freedom (13.2%, compared to the general 5.4%). The work set out to continue investigating a broader sample, with more homogeneous groups, and also examine the influence of social changes and laws of recent years, which are making behaviors that were previously tolerated or silenced, such as gender violence or sexual abuse of minors, now denounced. “It is a multifactorial phenomenon,” concludes Yagüe.
Professor Santiago Redondo adds that the crime “does not usually come suddenly”, but that these behaviors appear given by a series of conditions in life. “Criminal motivation is the basis for people to tend to crime, and it is something that comes from personal, family history and everything that happens to these people in their lives, but without opportunity there is no crime. And the opportunity often reaches the one who awaits it,” he concludes.
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