Victimology - Coursework Example

Task: Victimology Elder Abuse According to the crime victim services , elder abuse refers to the injudicious management and abandonment of the senior members of the society. Such mistreatment and uncaring attitude towards the old is chiefly attributable to persons who care for them such as relatives and other caregivers. Elder abuse takes different shapes such as bodily violence, intimidation and physical attack, spoken cruelty, fiscal mistreatment, psychological abuse, abandonment and infringement of their rights.

Crime victim service (2011) denotes that such mistreatment is a result of dependency of such elderly persons on caregivers such as relatives. The occurrence of such violence is attributable to bitterness towards the old, retaliatory attacks by younger adults, insufficient love and friendliness and general social plight. Reportedly, abusers are relations of the elderly individual who are supposedly caregivers.2 CVS (2011) reports several incidences of elder abuse. For instance, the year 2007 there were over 91590 individuals above the age of 65 who experienced violent misdemeanor.

Of all police crime reporting rate across the various age groups, the age group of 65 five and above had 61% of the total crime reports in the year 2007. This is indicative of the increased crime across this age group. Reportedly, the same year witnessed individuals above the age of 65 lose a massive 1.3 billion dollars in terms of individual and possessions crimes. People aged 60 and constituted 8% of the total deceptive crime reported to the federal trade commission in the year 2008 (CVS, 2011).

Consequently, about 12% of identity theft victims reported to the institution was age 60 years and above (CVS, 2011). This is indicative of the increasing criminal activity directed towards this age. 3 According to CVS (2011), five ways to of preventing elder abuse includes individual awareness of the persistence of the problem and its causative factors. The elderly person should make the concerned authorities aware of the quandary. Secondly, one must plan a head to establish caregivers preparedness in terms of financial, physical, and psychological resources.

One should arrange for an alternate care to take charge in the event of failure by the preliminary plan. The elders are encouraged to stay sociable by participating in communal activities and sustaining a well established association of friends. Lastly, one should obey the scheduled medical care and other many social engagements (CVS). CVS (2011) outlines several ways of identifying elder victimization. These include presence of rope burns, bruises, illnesses that appears prevalent and untreated, burns and fractures.

It is uncommon to for an elderly individual to suffer bruises on upper arms or clustered burns across the trunk of the body. Similarly, the presences of recent and past bruises are indicative of elder violence. Elderly people are not adventurous thus; the presence of rope burns and fractured body parts with no clear explanation indicates a resent violent treatment. Work CitedCrime Victim Service (CVS). Elderly. ND. Web. 10th November 2011