Family Crimes Against the Elderly

Elder Abuse and the Criminal Justice System

Patricia J. Brownell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780815332091
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135676698
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First Published in 1999. Family Crimes Against the Elderly, A Study of Elder Abuse and the New York Police Department represents an important contribution to the available knowledge on elder abuse as a criminal justice issue. While most studies of elder abuse to date have examined this social problem from a health, mental health or social service perspective, few have focused on it from the perspective of law enforcement.

Chapter V
Description of Findings

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the results of testing the hypothesis that by knowing certain information about an elder abuse victim living in Manhattan for whom a complaint report was filed with NYPD in 1992, it is possible to predict which victim will state willingness to prosecute at the time of filing a complaint report. This presumes that the characteristics of the victim under examination are significantly associated with the victims’s stated willingness to prosecute his or her abuser. For the purposes of this study the abuser is an offspring: As noted in Chapter IV, stepchildren and grandchildren in the study population are included as offspring.

In addition, it presumes that these characteristics will cluster together in a profile that will allow prediction as to whether the victim is likely to state willingness to prosecute at the time of the filing of a complaint with the police regarding the experience of abuse by an offspring. The hypothesized profiles of victims who are likely to state willingness or unwillingness to prosecute at the time of filing a police report on experiencing abuse by an offspring are developed based on whether they reflect the abuse dependency model of elder abuse (Pillemer), or the caretaker stress model of elder abuse (Steinmetz). Those cases identified as reflecting the abuser dependency (Pillemer) model are hypothesized to show a high probability of stating willingness to prosecute, and those reflecting the caretaker stress (Steinmetz) model are hypothesized to show a high probability of stating unwillingness to prosecute the abuser.

Hypotheses/Research Questions

This analysis is based on a series of research questions. These include:

1. What is the relationship of victims’ age to victims’ stated willingness to prosecute the abuser offspring?
2. What is the relationship between victims’ gender and stated willingness to prosecute their offspring abusers?
3. What is the relationship of race/ethnicity to victims’ stated willingness to prosecute the abuser offspring?
4. What is the relationship of abusers’ ages to victims’ stated willingness to prosecute the abuser offspring?
5. What is the relationship between victims’ stated willingness to prosecute and gender of abuser?
6. What is the relationship between victims’ stated willingness to prosecute and the living arrangement between the abuser and the victim?
7. Is an elder abuse victim more likely to state willingness to prosecute his or her abuser if he or she has self-reported the abuse to the police?
8. What is the relationship of category of abuse (financial, physical, or psychological) to victims’ stated willingness to victims' stated willingness to prosecute their abuser offspring?
9. What is the relationship between high/low intensity of abuse and victims’ stated willingness to prosecute the abuser offspring?
10. Does the profile of a victim who states willingness to prosecute the abuser conforms to that hypothesized to match the abuser dependency model of elder abuse? Characteristics include a victim who is younger (60 to 74 years), male, and Black, whose abuser is younger, also male (son), and is a perpetrator of low level financial or psychological abuse. In this model, the victim and abuser live apart and the victim has self-reported the abuse to the police.
11. Does the profile of a victim who states unwillingness to prosecute the abuser conform to that hypothesized to match the caretaker stress model of elder abuse? Characteristics include an abuser who is older (75 years and above), female, and White. The abuser is also older (above the mean age for group), female (daughter), and perpetrator of high level physical abuse. In this model, the victim and abuser live together and a third party (not the victim) has reported the abuse to the police on the victim’s behalf.

Based on a review of the literature, the following hypotheses for the study have been identified:

1. There is a significant association between a victim’s stated willingness to prosecute and a victim’s age: Younger victims will be significantly more likely to state willingness to prosecute their abusers than older victims.
2. There is a significant association between a victim’s stated willingness to prosecute and a victim’s gender, with female victims being significantly less likely to state willingness to prosecute their abusers than male victims.
3. There is a significant association between victims’ race/ethnicity and stated willingness to prosecute, with black victims being more likely to state willingness to prosecute than non-black victims.
4. There is a significant association between a victim’s stated willingness to prosecute and an abuser’s age: Victims will be significantly more likely to state willingness to prosecute younger abusers than older abusers.
5. There is a significant association between a victim’s stated willingness to prosecute and an abuser’s gender, with victims being significantly more likely to state willingness to prosecute male abusers than female abusers.
6. There is a significant association between the living arrangements of victims and abusers, and victims’ stated willingness to prosecute, with victims who live with their abusers being less likely to state willing to prosecute than those victims who do not live with their abusers.
7. There is a significant association between whether the victim self-reported the abuse to the police or whether an onlooker reported the abuse to the police on the victim’s behalf, with the self-reported victim being more likely to state willingness to prosecute the abusers.
8. There is a significant association between the type of abuse experienced by victims and their stated willingness to prosecute, with victims who experience financial abuse being more likely to state willingness to prosecute than victims who experience physical abuse.
9. There is a significant association between the intensity of abuse experienced by victims and their stated willingness to prosecute, with victims who experience low level of abuse being more likely to state willingness to prosecute than those who experience high levels of abuse.
10. Incidents involving victims who state willingness to prosecute their abuser offspring are more likely to include the following characteristics: male victim, male abuser, younger victim, younger abuser, be black, experienced financial and low intensity abuse, not live with abuser, and self-reported the abuse to the police.
11. Incidents involving victims who state unwillingness to prosecute their abuser offspring are more likely to include the following characteristics: female victim, female abuser, old-old victim, older abuser, be white, experienced physical and high intensity abuse, lives with the abuser, and did not self-report the abuse to the police.

Description of Study Population

The total sample for the study was 295. However, this section’s analysis is based on those cases with information on stated willingness to prosecute. As noted in Chapter IV, this reduced the study sample to 238. An analysis of the subset of 238 compared with the total set of 295 complaint reports has confirmed that they are proportionally similar and that therefore the 238 reports are representative of the universe of 295.

Data Analysis

The first section reports on results of the separate analyses for each of the above research questions. The purpose is to infer which characteristics as described in Chapter IV are significantly associated with victims' stated willingness to prosecute.

Victims’ Characteristics Associated with Stated Willingness/Unwillingness to Prosecute their Abusers

The study examined several research questions regarding the relationship between age, gender and ethnicity of the victim and victim’s stated willingness to prosecute. As expected, the age of the victim, when categorized as “young-old” (60 to 74 years old) and “old-old” (75 years and above), was found to be associated with stated willingness to prosecute. Younger victims were significantly more likely to state willingness to prosecute their offspring abusers than older victims (see Table 12).

On the other hand, the gender of victims was not found to influence whether or not they would state willingness to prosecute their abusers (see Table 13).

Table 12: Willingness to Prosecute by Age of Victim

Age Category	N	Willing to Prosecute	Unwilling to Prosecute
Age 60-75	195	77%	33%
Age 75 +	43	60%	40%

N = 238

(X₂ = 4.1, df = l, p = .042)

Table 13: Willingness to Prosecute by Gender of Victim

Gender Category	N	Willing to Prosecute	Unwilling to Prosecute
Female	176	74%	26%
Male	62	74%	26%

N = 238

(X² = .014, df = 1, p = .907)

Finally, contrary to expectation, race/ethnicity of victims proved to be a significant influence in victims’ stated willingness to pros...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Foreward
• Acknowledgements
• I. Problem Statement
• II. Literature Review
• III. Research Methodology
• IV. Description Of The Sample
• V. Description of Findings
• VI. Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography