Statistics on Abuse and Neglect
According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, around 10 percent of all elders are abused. The most common forms are verbal mistreatment, financial mistreatment, and physical mistreatment. The Office of Victims of Crime (2012) found that more than 90,000 persons over the age of 65 were the victims of violent crime in 2010. In addition, people age 60 and older made 14 percent of fraud complaints and 13 percent of identity theft complaints, and a dramatic rise of these crimes has been noticed among this population. According to Lifespan of Greater Rochester et al. (2011), financial abuse costs around $3 billion annually, and most of the children of the exploited elderly were not aware of the problem regardless of how involved they might be.
According to the National Council on Aging, in almost 60 percent of elder abuse and neglect incidents, the perpetrator is a family member, two thirds being adult children or their spouses. In addition, a study by New York State found the incidence rate was nearly 24 times greater than the number of cases referred to social services or law enforcement. This demonstrates the prevalence of elder abuse and neglect and just how underreported it is (Lifespan of Greater Rochester et al., 2011). The National Elder Abuse Incidence Study showed that only 20 percent of cases of neglect, exploitation, abuse, or self-neglect are reported (Tatara, Blumerman, Kuzmeskus, & Duckhorn, 2015). In addition, the National Research Council (2003) reported around 20,000 complaints of exploitation, neglect, and abuse coming from nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, including physical and sexual abuse.
Elder abuse is underreported because there is a lack of detection by others, a lack of knowledge about how to report abuse by the elderly, and a lack of ability for the elderly to report because of social isolation, access to transportation, and communication technology such as phones and computers.