Protecting the Vulnerable
By: Mike Edwards; Source: AARP Bulletin Date Posted: 2007-07-11 12:40:00-04:00
Bertha Trout was frugal. "Stingy," she cheerfully called herself. During her career as a telephone company clerical worker, she accumulated a retirement nest egg of $650,000. Well into her 90s, long widowed and living with just her three cats in a small apartment in Upper Darby, Pa., Trout thought it reasonable to give a great-niece power of attorney over her assets.
Goodbye $650,000.
As Trout's money began to drain away, the great-niece, Eileen Bingaman, and her husband, Lon, were seen driving his-and-hers Mercedes sedans. Court records say they spent $86,000 to fix up their own home, an additional $39,000 for furniture and appliances, $26,000 on furs and jewelry, and thousands more for Shih Tzu show dogs and a motor home. "It was brazen," says David Freed, district attorney of Pennsylvania's Cumberland County. "They completely divested Bertha of her life savings via the power of attorney."
Frail and only a year from death, Trout appeared in court wrapped in a blanket to testify against the Bingamans. It took a jury only 2½ hours to convict them on multiple fraud charges.
As Trout discovered, aging in America can be perilous. Her case jarred central Pennsylvania, but it plays out again and again in headlines all over the country: "Woman suspected of stealing ID of 89-year-old." "Man sentenced to 150 days in jail for keeping elderly brother in garage." "Man convicted of murdering father gets 15 to life."
A national survey of state adult protective agencies released in 2006 turned up, in one year, 565,747 reports of abuse of vulnerable adults—larceny, neglect and cruelty of all sorts. With 89 percent of reports occurring in domestic settings, it's a disturbing snapshot of mistreatment of people in their own homes, mostly by their own kin, who are also likely to be their caretakers.
And many experts believe the survey revealed only the iceberg's tip. According to a yardstick developed by researchers, only one instance of abuse in 14 becomes known; in fact, a U.S. Senate committee has estimated the number of victims at 5 million yearly. Whatever the measure, the number is bound to multiply now that the first of 78 million boomers have passed age 60.
Given the magnitude of the problem and the popularity of federal programs to combat child abuse and domestic violence, legislation to aid elders would seem to be the mother of all slam-dunks. Yet elder abuse, according to U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., is "under-researched, under-funded and under-prosecuted." And the federal government is uninvolved, despite calls from elder advocates, including AARP, for intervention.
"It remains a mystery and a travesty that nothing comprehensive has been done," says Robert B. Blancato, national coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition, which represents scores of agencies and organizations providing aid to older people.
It's not for lack of awareness in Washington: Congressional committees have collected grim testimony on the subject for nearly three decades. And it's not for lack of opportunity: Versions of an Elder Justice Act have been introduced in Congress every year since 2002. But despite bipartisan support, the legislation has only made it out of committee, and even then only in the Senate before ultimately failing.
Part of the challenge, says Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is getting the public to recognize elder abuse as an issue: "Older people who have been abused don't talk about it. Who are you going to tell if it's happening in your own home?" Also, the legislation inevitably competes with other national priorities, adds Rhonda Richards, AARP's senior legislative representative, while some members of Congress may oppose all new spending measures.
"We don't have one federal employee working full time combating elder abuse," says Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who reintroduced the Elder Justice Act in the Senate in March with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. In the House, Emanuel and King reintroduced the legislation, and both have promised to see it passed this year.
The bills, possibly headed for hearings this summer, would make millions of dollars available for research and programs to protect older people. The largest appropriation, $400 million spread over four years, would pay for beefing up state and local adult protective services agencies, which are often hampered by insufficient funding and inadequate training, according to state APS administrators.
Caseworkers must make difficult "decisions about removing people from their homes for medical evaluation or when they need to be evaluated for competency," says Kathleen Quinn, executive director of the National Adult Protective Services Association. "At the same time there may be a big family fight over money, especially when someone is stealing it, or fights about the elder's care. The caseworker may also have to deal with guardianship issues or other legal issues."
Several provisions in the House version of the act would support police and prosecutors, acknowledging what caseworkers know: that criminals regard older people as inviting targets. Because so many victims—humiliated, perhaps, or fearing retaliation or being sent to a nursing home—keep silent when maltreated, "criminals learn that the chance of a crime being reported is minimal," says Chayo Reyes, who spent 19 years as a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department.
In handling cases involving older people, Reyes helped develop a multidisciplinary approach that included social workers, paramedics and financial experts because, Reyes says, "no one agency could do everything." Provisions in the House version encourage Reyes' approach while funding technical assistance and training for prosecutors, police and sheriffs, and even supporting elder justice positions in law enforcement units.
"We all know there are huge numbers of elderly people coming along, and more and more people with disabilities are living to advanced ages," Quinn says. "Many of these people are extremely vulnerable to being taken advantage of and to being neglected."
The Elder Justice Act will be adopted, vows King. And when it is, he says, "people are going to say, 'What took you so long?' "
Mike Edwards, a former writer and editor at National Geographic magazine, lives in Washington.
To order black-and-white reprints of this article call 1-866-888-3723.
Additional Related Link
preview