|
|
Golden Years Tarnished by Abuse
Jim Doyle, San Francisco Chronicle
May 31, 2005
An 80-year-old woman meets with a social worker
from San Francisco Adult Protective Services at a county safe house.
photo by Christina Koci Hernandez
The growing problem of elder abuse -- dramatically highlighted last week by the case of an 84-year-old San Francisco widow -- is getting more attention than ever, but experts warn that California is ill-prepared to deal with a predicted flood of such cases as Baby Boomers grow old.
Estimates already put the abuse rate at 1 out of every 20 senior citizens, and some believe that it will get worse as the state's population ages and grows more vulnerable.
"Elder abuse is one of the most serious issues facing law enforcement today," said Paul Greenwood, a San Diego deputy district attorney. "I see the problem magnifying over the next few years. These cases are going on all around us. ... Elders are living longer, and we have so many more thousands of elders living in million-dollar properties."
In addition to cases of physical and emotional abuse of seniors, police and prosecutors are grappling with a new wave of crimes against the elderly involving real estate fraud, Internet and phone scams, and other forms of financial exploitation.
"Everybody's gotten older, and a lot of folks have gotten asset rich, even if they're cash poor. So they're tempting targets," said state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, an advocate for seniors. "What makes these cases all the more tragic is that the very people who you would hope would love and protect their elders are often the worst sources of abuse:
family members, caregivers and financial professionals."
Elder abuse victims, however, come from all walks of life, and its perpetrators range from the closest relatives and hired caregivers to strangers who insinuate themselves into a victim's life, as they did in last week's case involving a widow in San Francisco.
Police say that Ellen Gutierrez, 84, was held prisoner in her Mission District apartment by six gang members who dealt drugs from her home and even ate her free senior meals. The gang members, who were arrested May 18, allegedly held her hostage for months while keeping social workers at bay.
While the circumstances of her case are atypical and have drawn widespread media attention, prosecutors, social workers and other experts say it will take a fundamental shift in societal attitudes and a reshuffling of federal, state and local budget priorities before elder abuse gets the steady attention it needs.
California created its elder abuse law in 1986, but until recently, it was seldom invoked by police or prosecutors. Historically, a low success rate of prosecuting elder abuse cases often led to decisions not to file criminal charges or, if charges were filed, to allow plea bargains with minimal jail sentences.
Franklin Zimring, a professor of criminal law at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, said that a crime of elder abuse "used to stay with the family and was downplayed if police were involved. It didn't result in formal arrests. It didn't result in investigations.
And those days are changing. The crime of elder abuse is being recognized."
The law enforcement community and judges are taking these cases more seriously now. Zimring and others say an increase in prosecution of elder abuse cases represents the kind of forceful attention that has been needed for decades.
"What's happening right now with elders is what happened with laws against child abuse 30 years ago and what happened when we got serious about domestic violence 15 years ago," said Melissa McKowan, a San Mateo County deputy district attorney. "As a result of increased awareness and reporting requirements, more cases are being brought to light."
On an average day, there are more than 300 reports of alleged elder abuse received at the 58 counties' Adult Protective Services agencies, according to the California Department of Social Services. In San Francisco, the Adult Protective Services program receives about 250 reports of elder abuse each month that, because of their specificity and credibility, must be investigated under state law.
"We have been really swamped," said Mary Counihan, who heads San Francisco's Adult Protective Services program. "The cases getting referred to us are ones in which the abuse is either more severe, the problem is more entrenched, and the services required are either more difficult to provide or there are fewer options available."
Although no statewide figures are available for the number of prosecutions of elder abuse, the California attorney general's office has more than doubled its elder abuse cases against hospitals and nursing homes in the past five years, with an average of 111 criminal filings annually in the last three years.
In San Diego County, the district attorney's caseload of elder abuse prosecutions has risen from 17 felony cases filed in 1996 to 165 cases filed last year. Two-thirds of its cases involve financial abuse.
The number of elder abuse cases in Bay Area courts has also risen significantly, although no statistics are available. Over the last year, the San Francisco district attorney's office has handled about 100 such cases in court.
Elder abuse cases can be fraught with difficulties. "Your victims, because they are elders, have certain aspects that make them more vulnerable and susceptible to crime: physical and mental frailty, various levels of dementia, Alzheimer's," said Alan Kennedy, a San Francisco prosecutor. "So their recall in testifying about various aspects of the case may not be as strong. By the time you get to court, they may have gone downhill mentally or physically. They may not remember the crime at all."
In addition, doctors, nurses and the clergy sometimes overlook their legal duty to file timely reports of suspected elder abuse. And police and social workers can face a tricky legal and ethical dilemma of when to become involved in an elder abuse case. An abused senior generally has the right to refuse the aid of police or social workers -- unless the person is either in imminent physical danger or mentally incompetent.
"Elder abuse, like all kinds of family violence, is extremely complex, medically and otherwise," said Mary Twomey, director of the elder abuse prevention program at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco. "It's a rare case of elder abuse that doesn't involve some complicated family dynamics, often generations of family dysfunction, and the unfamiliarity that comes with the role change that starts when children become caretakers of their parents."
The California attorney general's office estimates that 5 percent of elderly Californians -- or about 200,000 seniors -- are the victims of neglect or physical, psychological or financial abuse. Two-thirds of the abusers are family members. The majority of victims are women aged 75 or over. A study by the National Center on Elder Abuse estimated that for every reported case of elder abuse, about five go unreported.
California has the nation's largest elderly population, with nearly 4 million seniors aged 65 or over -- a number that is predicted by the state Department of Finance to double by 2030. In addition, the state's elderly population is expected to grow more than twice as fast as its total population, according to the California Department of Aging.
Increased public awareness and early intervention in cases of suspected abuse, experts say, provide the best hope for protecting seniors.
"People should be as outraged when an elder is abused or neglected as when a child is," said Mary Ellen Kullman Courtright, vice president of the Archstone Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Long Beach that focuses on issues of older Americans. "People think, 'Oh, they're old, they would die anyway.' They don't get outraged. And that's something we need to change."
The foundation, which has sponsored national conferences on elder abuse, plans to invest $8 million in the next five years to improve the quality of services to prevent elder abuse and neglect in California. In part, it is sponsoring research projects to investigate the number of incidents of elder abuse.
"Elder abuse has been such a taboo that we really don't have a good handle on how many cases there are," Kullman Courtright said. "There are not too many people who want to acknowledge that this is going on. So there's not a strong advocacy voice for them."
Some steps are under way.
Increased training at police agencies and the videotaping of preliminary hearings in elder abuse cases (when victims' memories are most likely to be fresh) has aided prosecution. Traditionally, proving the cases has been difficult in elder abuse.
Counties have established multi-disciplinary task forces, which include experts in financial matters as well as medical and law enforcement personnel, to investigate suspected crimes.
The state Legislature is weighing a bill by Simitian to compel bankers to notify authorities of suspected crimes of financial abuse against elders. Physicians, nurses, social workers and the clergy are already required by law to report suspected crimes of elder abuse.
State lawmakers are also considering bills that would strengthen elder abuse laws through the increased use of criminal background checks for nursing home staff members and longer prison sentences for repeat offenders.
The California attorney general's office is completing a three-year campaign to raise public awareness about elder abuse, which has included TV and radio ads and the creation of a statewide, toll-free hot line -- (888) 436-3600 -- to help put people in touch with Adult Protective Services programs on a confidential basis.
"Elder abuse is one of the most under-recognized, under-reported and under-prosecuted crimes in the state," said Peggy Osborn of the attorney general's office. "Unfortunately, elder abuse remains hidden -- often because of the shame, guilt, isolation or mental impairment of the victim. Elder abuse thrives on silence."
On a national level, Congress is considering passage of the federal Elder Justice Act, which would establish training opportunities for law enforcement officials, foster research programs into elder abuse, and provide a steady stream of increased funds for states' Adult Protective Services, county prosecutors and local police.
Experts say budget priorities need to be reassessed to aid those working on the front lines of elder abuse. Less than 2 percent of federal dollars appropriated for abuse prevention programs nationwide is earmarked for seniors, congressional researchers say. Almost all abuse prevention funds go to child abuse, spousal abuse and domestic violence programs.
State funding also has been curtailed in recent years. In 1999, the state budget for Adult Protective Services was expanded. Since then, the state's budget crisis has taken its toll. County protective service programs have endured three years of cutbacks in state funding.
"We can't just pay lip service and tinker with changes in the law while cutting the budget and taking away the resources to protect the most vulnerable members of our society," San Diego prosecutor Greenwood said. "If we don't provide the additional resources, police and Adult Protective Services are going to get buried."
|
|
