Innovative criminal statutes, cooperation between law enforcement and other community agencies, and training for law enforcement personnel. Criminal investigation sand prosecution of elder abuse is a recent phenomenon. Traditionally, abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation of elderly and vulnerable adults by family members, friends, and fiduciaries, if recognized and reported at all, were reported to adult protective services agencies and the long-term-care ombudsman programs, community organizations, and occasionally, to professional licensing boards. Because elder abuse was rarely viewed as criminal conduct, litigation historically has been brought in civil courts as applications for guardianship, civil suits for damages, and will contests (Heisler and Tewksbury, iggi; Heisler, iggi; U.S. Department of Justice, i998a). Law enforcement did not view the issue as a serious problem and lacked training and experience in handling cases (Plotkin, 1988). The criminal justice system, including law enforcement, prosecution, judges, and probation officers, simply were not viewed as playing a role. The last decade has seen a significant change due at least in part to new information on the forms and consequences of elder abuse, profiles of perpetrators, and relationship to domestic and family violence. Increasingly, professionals in a variety of fields have come to believe that in serious cases, only the criminal justice system may be capable of stopping the abuse, protecting the victim, and holding the offender accountable (Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence, 1984; Heisler 1991; U.S. Department of Justice, 1998a). Criminal cases are relatively few and tend to be repetitive, serious, and life-threatening incidents. Prosecution remains an exceptional outcome. In recognition that elder abuse is not only an act against its individual victim with enormous personal consequences, but also an antisocial act against the entire community, some states have enacted statutes that criminalize various acts of elder abuse. While the exact cost of elder abuse is unknown, studies show that between 820,000 and over 2 million incidents of elder abuse occur every year (Tatara, Kuzmeskus, and Duckhorn,1997). Costs of victimization include actual dollar losses from fraud and theft, medical care, repair of damaged or destroyed property, housing and maintenance for victims left destitute, investigation (and other) costs incurred by adult protective services, long-term-care ombudsman programs, public and private guardians, law enforcement, court investigators, prosecution and probation agencies, legal defense fees, court costs, and custodial and supervision costs for probation and correctional officials. Traditional responses assume that victims do not want help from the criminal justice system. While this may be true for many victims, there are others who want law enforcement to investigate their cases and prosecution to charge their abusers (Korbin et al., 1991). Excluding elderabuse cases from the criminal justice system shuts the courthouse door and denies older people the full protection of the law afforded younger people. Victims suffer serious consequences from criminal abuse; they may be injured, left destitute, or even killed (Plotkin, 1988; Nerenberg,1999). Studies have shown that abuse victims suffer earlier mortality than elders who are not abuse victims (Lachs and Pillemer, 1998). Perpetrators whose actions are referred to the criminal justice system are rarely caregivers under stress who are unable to balance the competing demands of home, family, job, and ailing relative. Instead, most perpetrators are like people who engage in other kinds of criminal conduct: They are motivated by greed, personal gain, self-justification, a desire to exercise control, and opportunity. And like other kinds of perpetrators, they often target people they believe to be vulnerable. Examples of actual criminal cases illustrate this point. …
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