Elder Abuse

Abstract

In this chapter I will examine the concept of elder abuse, arguing that this extends beyond the more limited notion of the ‘criminal victimisation’ of the elderly. Drawing on examples of research studies and legislation from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, the principal argument of the chapter is that the traditionally positivistic methods adopted by criminologists to count and otherwise understand crime (mainly in the form of victimisation surveys and police data) underestimate greatly the prevalence of elder victimisation, particularly when such victimisation is understood to encompass broader ‘social harms’ not necessarily recognised as official ‘crimes’ by the criminal law and in any case not often coming to the attention of the criminal justice system.KeywordsDomestic ViolenceCare HomeHate CrimeCorporate CrimeCritical CriminologyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.