Focus on elderly abuse includes police, social services agencies, the general public

Criminals tend to swing toward those at Point A or Point B. The young and old have always been targets: easy to manipulate, trusting. Tough laws and media attention keep the focus on child abuse, but for years elder abuse has remained underreported and overlooked. In Nashville and across Tennessee, that’s starting to change. 

In the last three years, 1,320 Metro officers along with 70 detectives and counselors have been trained to spot elder abuse, neglect, financial exploitation, and how to build a case. They’ve studied marks of strangulation, contrasted accidental versus intentional bruises. Officers now carry an 8x12 yellow, laminated cheat sheet with sample questions for suspects and victims. 

The District Attorney’s Office, Sexual Assault Center and Adult Protective Services are among the agencies that conducted the training. A $320,000 federal grant administered through the YWCA covered the cost. 

As the grant comes to a close, the question is whether the momentum will continue. Will heightened awareness result in more convictions? Or will persistent gaps in senior services and the complicated nature of these cases slow progress? 

Reporting of abuse is on the rise. In 2009, Adult Protective Services had 9,464 reported incidents. (A Department of Human Services spokesperson said 2010 numbers are not available due to software problems.) That’s twice what they’d receive a decade ago, said Helen Allen, program supervisor at APS. 

“Our counselors used to get five new cases a month,” Allen said. “Now they’re getting 20.” A little extra manpower to keep up with demand would help. 

“We always need more counselors,” said Allen, adding that she’s not expecting extra funding in lean years. 

Of the cases that come to APS from Middle Tennessee, Nashville has the highest number. Sixty-two percent of victims are women. Most suspects — 87 percent — are relatives of the victims. And that’s the main reason prosecuting these cases is so difficult: No one wants to send someone they love to prison. One study out of New York revealed that only one out of every 23 elder abuse cases ever gets reported. 

Katie Griffith is a social worker with FiftyForward, a nonprofit senior services agency.  For every grandson swiping checks from grandma or daughter cleaning out her dad’s savings, Griffith hears the same sentiment from elderly victims. 

“They say, ‘I thought I raised my son or daughter better. I never believed they would do this to me,’ ” Griffith said.

Take Ms. J. (The City Paper agreed not to use her name.) Ms. J was in her 80s, widowed, but happy with her independence. She gardened, drove herself to appointments, vacationed all over the U.S. Then her daughter moved in. Life changed. Bills from Master Card and Visa piled up. Her daughter’s shopping sprees totaling tens of thousands of dollars were on cards opened in Ms. J’s name. It took a year for her to finally turn in her daughter. 

Mary Petty, who works with FiftyForward’s Victory Over Crime program, said elderly victims like Ms. J take it personally, as if they’ve failed as parents.

“She was embarrassed,” Petty said. “She thought if she talked to her daughter it would stop.”

The same pattern emerges in physical abuse cases. Allen recalled trying to get help for an 83-year-old man who was constantly cycling through the ER with broken bones and dark trails of fingerprints all over his arms. His visits coincided with his Social Security check arriving in the mail. 

“He admitted his son was abusing him,” Allen said. “But he said, ‘Ma’am, thank you for coming out here, but this is my home. My son lives here, too. I don’t want to leave my home, and I don’t want to lose my home. I can protect myself. And he’s just stressed.’ ”

Unlike children, adults can’t be forced out of a bad situation. They must choose to leave. The only exception involves seniors with dementia or Alzheimer’s. In those cases, APS has to file a petition with the court first. Allen has a hunch as to why seniors often shut the door on them. 

“They think we’re going to jerk you out and put you in a nursing home,” she said. “That’s untrue. It’s a myth.” 

Even if APS wants to take a victim out of their home, they’d have nowhere to take them. There are no shelters in Tennessee that can accommodate such a medically fragile population. Without that neutral safe zone, it’s incredibly difficult to counsel victims and explain to them that getting out of a bad situation doesn’t mean a straight shot to the old folks’ home, advocates say. 

“No shelters,” Allen said, shaking her head. “We need that so badly.”  

FiftyForward and the Tennessee Vulnerable Adult Coalition have made the construction of a shelter a priority. Legislators are also taking up issues related to elder abuse. A bill introduced by Republican state Rep. Ryan Haynes would classify strangulation, or choking, as aggravated assault, making it a felony. Currently, it’s a misdemeanor. 

Currently, Tennessee has three laws pertaining to elder abuse. One makes it mandatory for anyone suspecting abuse to report it. The others make abuse, neglect and stealing of Social Security checks or other government monies a felony. When Metro Det. Michael Park heard about these laws in a training session, he tuned in. 

“We were sitting in class and we raised our eyebrows,” Park said. “It was like, ‘That’s what we were looking for.’ ” 

The laws aren’t new. Some detectives just never knew they could fine-tune their investigations to not only go after criminals but also attack a stigma. Park said that much like child abusers, someone who’s
left a frail senior citizen broke or bruised draws attention. 

“A judge is definitely going to take that into consideration when they’re sentencing someone,” he said. 

Still, successful prosecutions of elder abuse cases aren’t easy. Detectives and caseworkers are buried. Investigations take time. Victims recoil. But Park said Nashville and Tennessee are turning a corner. 

“I think as a community we might’ve been a little slow in protecting our elderly,” he said. “But we’re catching up.”