by Robert C. Davis and Juanjo Medina-Ariza
National Institute of Justice
NCJ 188675
September 2001

Reviewed by Loree Cook-Daniels

In September 2001 the National Institute of Justice released a Research Brief with very controversial findings, “Results from an Elder Abuse Prevention Experiment in New York City.”

An intervention was designed for public housing projects in New York City. Thirty of sixty such projects were randomly assigned to receive public education on elder abuse in the form of posters, leaflets, and presentations. Afterwards, half of all households reporting elder abuse to police (a total of 403 households) from all 60 projects were randomly assigned to receive follow-up home visits from a team of a police officer and a domestic violence counselor. The team “discussed legal options and police procedures and attempted to link the households to social services. Victims were also encouraged to call the police if repeat violence occurred. In the few cases in which the abusers were present, the police officer made it clear to them that police would monitor the household.”

Follow-up interviews of the victims were held at 6 and 12 months after the initial elder abuse report. These interviews showed that unlike a similar intervention tested with younger domestic violence victims, “new incidents of abuse were MORE frequent among households that both received home visits and were in housing projects that received public education.” Households that had received home visits called the police significantly more often than the “control” households (who didn’t receive home visits), regardless of whether the household was in a project that had been exposed to public education or not.

The researchers suggested three possible explanations for the findings:

• Persons who received both interventions did not suffer more abuse but had become more sensitized to abuse.

• Persons who received both interventions were more willing to report abuse both to police and to research interviewers.

• Receiving both interventions caused more abuse to occur.

The researchers felt that because elders “may be more dependent, both physically and financially, on the abuser,” “if abusers of elderly relatives become angered by attempts to intervene, victims may have no options for escape.” However, in the longer report on the experiment, the researchers noted that they measured the mutual dependency of victim and abuser and found that “[v]ery few of our respondents were dependent on their abusers.”

They did not, unfortunately, report on whether the abusers were dependent on the victims. This is significant, since previous researchers have noted that abusers are often more dependent on elders than vice versa. What impact might that dynamic have had if an abuser felt his housing and/or financial support were threatened by repeated police involvement?

Neither the Research Brief nor the full report indicated that the researchers examined whether simply giving referrals to elder abuse victims is as effective as actually helping link victims to services.

Most importantly, only 50% of those who were supposed to receive home visits actually got them, and the average follow-up visit took place 56 days after the initial call. Nevertheless, the researchers did not exclude the households who were supposed to get visits but didn’t, counting them in the “intervention received” category. The Research Brief maintains that “these results also hold if households with unsuccessful home visits are excluded,” although no data on that point is included in the larger report. The larger report does say that “[a] few cases assigned to the control (no home visit) condition through the randomization process received a home visit. In three control cases the random assignment designation was overridden by [victim services] supervisors due to concern about possible harm to the victim if the intervention was withheld.” The researchers did not specify how these presumably more serious cases ended up being factored into the results.

In perhaps a more discouraging finding, 6- and 12-month follow-up surveys “failed to demonstrate any greater awareness of services or knowledge of elder abuse” among those residents of public housing that had received elder abuse education materials than those who had not.

The National Institute of Justice Research in Brief, “Results from an Elder Abuse Prevention Experiment in New York City,” NCJ 188675, is available on the web at www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/188675.pdf.

The full report, NCJ 189086, is available for $15.00 from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 800-851-3420.