Abstract

In this chapter I examine the concept of elder abuse, arguing that this extends beyond the more limited notion of the criminal victimisation of the elderly. Drawing on examples of research studies and legislation from the UK, Canada and the USA the principal argument of the chapter is that the traditionally positivistic methods adopted by criminologists to count and otherwise understand crime (mainly in the form of victimisation surveys and police data) underestimate greatly the prevalence of elder victimisation, particularly when such victimisation is understood to encompass broader 'social harms' not necessarily recognised as official 'crimes' by the criminal law and in any case not often coming to the attention of the criminal justice system. In adopting a broad approach to the questions of social harms befalling older people, this paper of course reflects the primary arguments of the so called critical schools of criminology and victimology, which hold that criminologists and victimologists have for most of their history focused the majority of their attention on those notions of crime and criminal justice espoused by states (McBarnet, 1983)