Effectiveness of a Joint Police and Social Services Response to Elder Abuse in Manhattan [New York City], New York, 1996-1997
Description
This project consisted of an evaluation of an elder abuse
program run by the New York Police Department and Victim Services
Research. The focus of the study was domestic elder abuse, which
generally refers to any of several forms of maltreatment, physical
abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, neglect, and/or financial
exploitation of an older person. The program, conducted in New York
City public housing, had two complementary parts. First, public
housing projects in Manhattan were assigned to one of two levels of
public education (i.e., to receive or not to receive educational
materials about elder abuse). Once the public education treatment had
been implemented, 403 older adult residents of the housing projects
who reported elder abuse to the police during the next ten months were
assigned to one of two levels of follow-up to the initial police
response (i.e., to receive or not to receive a home visit) as the
second part of the project. The home visit intervention consisted of a
strong law enforcement response designed to prevent repeat incidents
of elder abuse. A team from the Domestic Violence Intervention and
Education Program (DVIEP), consisting of a police officer and a social
worker, followed up on domestic violence complaints with a home visit
within a few days of the initial patrol response. Victims were
interviewed about new victimizations following the intervention on
three occasions: six weeks after the trigger incident, six months
after the trigger incident, and twelve months after the trigger
incident. Interviews at the three time points were identical except
for the omission of background information on the second and third
interviews. Demographic data collected during the first interview
included age, gender, ethnicity, education, employment, income, legal
relationship with abuser, living situation, number of people in the
household, and health. For each time point, data provide measures of
physical, psychological, and financial abuse, knowledge of elder
abuse, knowledge and use of social services, satisfaction with the
police, assessment of service delivery, and self-esteem and
well-being. The DVIEP databases maintained on households at each of
the three participating Police Service Areas (PSAs) were searched to
identify new police reports of elder abuse for households in the
sample within 12 months following the trigger incident. Variables from
the DVIEP databases include age, race, ethnicity, and sex of the
victim and the perpetrator, relationship of perpetrator to victim,
type of abuse reported, charge, whether an arrest was made, if an
order of protection had been obtained, if the order of protection was
violated, use of weapons, if the victim had been injured, and if the
victim was taken to the hospital. Several time lapse variables between
different time points are also provided.