INTRODUCTION

For too long, elder abuse has been hidden and ignored, and only relatively recently has it received the attention it deserves and been recognised as a major social problem. While there is more discussion of the issue today than used to be the case, there is still considerable difficulty in terms of finding the correct legal response to it. Elder abuse, it has been claimed, has reached the position domestic violence did several decades ago. There is now an acceptance of the problem and that something needs to be done, but the law is yet to provide an effective set of remedies in response.

The analyses of elder abuse proposed here maps the themes presented in earlier chapters. The starting point is that older people, like everyone else, have a fundamental human right to protection from abuse. This imposes a positive obligation on the state to put in place legal and social structures that inhibit, respond and deter abuse. This chapter will also explore how, like standard cases of domestic abuse, elder abuse reflects broader social attitudes towards older people and particularly older women. It is crucial that elder abuse is understood in its broader context. As the Toronto Declaration on the Global Prevention of Elder Abuse puts it:

It is important to recognise that the label ‘elder abuse’ covers a wide range of behaviour. Indeed, while there are some commonalities between cases that fall under this broad label, there are major differences in the issues raised by, for example, neglect by care home staffand cases of elder abuse between spouses where the abuse has lasted for the whole duration of the relationship. The behaviour of nurse Colin Norris, who killed four elderly patients, is very different from the harm done to an older man suffering dementia who is neglected by his exhausted wife. Elder abuse involves a complex amalgam of causes and requires sensitive and subtle responses.

A key theme in this chapter will be whether it is appropriate to treat the abuse of older people under the broader framework of domestic abuse or whether it should have its own specialised response.