Transcriber:
When we're seven, getting older
and turning eight sounds great.
Then once we're in our teens,
the very idea of getting older
and being 16 is amazing.
But show me one single person
who wakes up on their 50th birthday
and says, "Wow, I can't wait till I'm 70."
"Getting old is not for sissies."
That's what my 90-year-old
mother-in-law says when she's cross
because something, physically or mentally,
just isn't working the way it should,
and did, years ago.
But there are other surprises ahead of us.
There is something else
that goes along with aging,
and it's not something
we ever think about.
One in 10 adults over 60
will be abused during their lifetime.
That is five million people every year.
Even worse,
half of those who develop dementia
will experience some kind of abuse.
And more often than not,
the abuser will be a family member.
We never think
that this is going to happen
to us or to our loved ones.
But it's happening, right now,
to our parents, our grandparents
and our neighbors.
I first learned elder abuse was a thing
when my dad fell victim
to a classic elder scam.
He was retired and he was living alone,
and although he was hiding it really well,
he was starting to struggle with tasks
that had once been simple for him.
The medical term would probably be
"mild cognitive impairment."
Then, one day, I found
a detective's business card
sitting on his kitchen table.
He'd been ripped off
by a phony roofing contractor.
He'd given this guy
a lot of money up front,
and the guy took his money
and then took off.
Despite my dad's police report,
no one was ever charged or prosecuted.
I was a criminal defense attorney
at the time, but even still,
I was shocked that it had happened.
And as his daughter, I was horrified
that I hadn't seen it coming.
Years later, I moved to Colorado,
and I started working
as a deputy district attorney,
prosecuting crimes against older adults
and folks with disabilities.
I soon learned that there were a ton
of these crimes out there,
but not so many of them
were getting reported.
The statistics said maybe one in 14.
And when those crimes did get reported,
as I'd already seen, very few of them
got charged or prosecuted,
and only the tiniest proportion
resulted in a conviction.
So let's just think
about domestic violence
and child abuse, for a second.
Think about all the resources
of public-service campaigns
poured into those issues --
and yet, still, those crimes
remain way too high.
Efforts to address elder abuse
are said to be 20 years behind
both of those issues.
But we need to get better,
and we need to get better fast,
because this problem is exploding.
Elder abuse is growing,
but it still remains hidden
because of shame,
because of embarrassment,
because of affection
between perpetrator and victim.
And most of all, because everyone
has a deep, instinctive fear
of admitting to impairment.
So we see lots of different
types of elder crime.
We see physical abuse,
we see emotional abuse.
Sometimes, we'll see neglect
or sexual abuse.
But every single day,
we see fraud and exploitation.
Financial crimes against seniors in the US
cost an astonishing amount.
The estimates put it up
to 36.5 billion dollars every year.
We know that seniors get bombarded
by phone scams and internet scams
even more than the rest of us.
And this is lazy-boy crime.
Why would anyone go out and rob a bank?
They can sit at home,
they call seniors and they terrify them
that they're about to get arrested
or that their grandsons are in jail.
Then, they pressure them to buy
multiple gift cards and Bitcoin.
So many seniors have saved for decades,
and those nest eggs, or sometimes,
their whole life savings,
just get wiped out in hours,
or sometimes days.
It's low-risk crime,
and it's very lucrative.
But what's the reason
that seniors are falling
for these scams so often?
And why do criminals target them?
One possible answer lies
in what happens to our brain as we age.
By the time we're 60,
neuroscience says
that every single one of us
is going to have some kind
of cognitive change or deficit.
Of course, our brains compensate,
and no two individuals are the same.
But as our executive functioning
for complex tasks starts to decline,
we might find it more difficult
to figure out if someone is trying
to manipulate or exploit us.
And at the same time,
we'll very likely have less insight
into the fact that these deficits exist.
And this combination
creates perfect victims.
It also goes to explain
another type of crime
that we see seniors falling for,
again and again,
and this is financial exploitation.
In this type of crime,
a third party homes in on the senior.
They start to use
persuasion and influence,
and really almost grooming,
to get them to give them money or assets.
This can be a new person
in the senior's life,
and sometimes, it'll seem
like someone who's really great.
It'll be the new best friend
or the fabulous new caregiver.
Maybe a romantic interest,
or even a financial or legal professional.
And what we see is that the bond
that the perpetrator creates
with the senior is so strong
that even if they're
cleaned out and penniless,
they're often incurring credit card debt,
and even taking out reverse mortgages
so they can give more
to the person scamming them.
But right now, on some level,
we're still thinking that this is not
something that's going to happen to us.
We couldn't get scammed, not us,
not our smart friends and family.
Are we so sure about that?
Howard and Charlotte
were 89 and 83 when they came forward.
They'd both had careers
as successful psychotherapists,
and they had six college
degrees between them.
Years before, a receptionist
from their eye doctor’s office
had showed up unexpectedly at their home
and asked if she could borrow 300 dollars.
She came back again and again,
and often, she brought
her small child with her.
And every time she showed up,
she had something new to tell them
about why she needed money urgently:
eviction costs, a lawsuit,
medical bills or surgery.
She rarely left without a check in hand.
And after this had gone on for some time,
she had got almost 600,000 dollars
from this couple.
And all the time, they told no one.
It wasn't until their accountant
asked them questions
that they couldn't avoid,
and then told them this was a crime,
and that they had to call it in.
Even then, they waited
another couple of weeks,
until, mortified,
they finally took his advice.
This case is also a great example
of how delays inherent
in the criminal justice system
make achieving justice for seniors
a really difficult task.
Howard was already dying of heart failure
at the time that this case was charged.
His cardiologist said
that he only had a few months to live.
So trial might be a year or more out.
And Howard was an essential witness,
but he wasn't going to be around.
We litigated, to take his testimony
ahead of time, by a deposition.
That's something that's really
fairly rare in criminal cases.
Finally, Howard testified from his home.
And he spent the entire next day
in bed, exhausted.
He passed away only six weeks later.
And we were so lucky.
If Howard had cognitive issues,
important details
might already have been lost.
And this is what happens in these cases.
The clock's running against us,
and that clock runs out,
and cases get dismissed.
The victims and their voices
simply fade away.
Let's talk about
another problem that we face,
which is based on fundamental
legal principle.
It's the confrontation clause
of the Constitution.
This means that when someone
is accused of a crime,
they have the right
to bring in their accuser,
confront them face-to-face in court,
and cross-examine them.
The person who's accused of abuse
can insist on bringing in the senior
to have their lawyer question them.
As you can imagine,
this is very tough
in cases with older victims.
I think of one case I prosecuted,
where the elderly woman
sat in her wheelchair
outside the courtroom for hours,
waiting to testify.
Other cases overran.
Eventually, cold and tired
and in pain, she just started crying.
We really need to figure out
better solutions.
Sometimes, we can carve out
small exceptions
to the confrontation clause,
based on public policy
and the necessities of the case.
Sometimes, remote testimony
can be a substitute
for in-person presence,
particularly if we build in
due process safeguards,
like having a person
from each side present,
to make sure there isn't any
prompting or interference.
During the pandemic,
judges have sometimes permitted
remote testimony
based on the public health crisis
and the elevated risks
that that presents to seniors.
There's one other thing
that's really worth mentioning,
which is that in other legal systems,
where confrontation
isn't quite so fundamental,
they're really headed
in an entirely different direction.
Special measures
to protect vulnerable victims
are becoming more common,
and what's driving these changes
is the focus on really getting the best
and most reliable testimony
from the witness,
which kind of makes sense.
Also, in California, initiatives
around specialty courts have been set up
to address some of these specific barriers
to elder justice that we're talking about.
So we can make this system better.
We can also take action ourselves
to prevent those we love
being affected by predatory behavior.
It is time that we had the talk.
No, it's not that talk.
This is the talk that we need
to have with our parents
or other elder adults that we talk to.
And it is every bit as awkward,
because it goes against the grain
of the relationship.
Roles have changed forever,
and the person
who used to be our protector
might now need some protection themselves.
So before we even start this process,
we can reach out to family friends,
because they often have
a great idea of what's going on.
They may be able to tell us
if they've seen signs and symptoms
that concern them.
Physicians or other
professionals can help too.
Then let's talk about tone,
because this is not an easy conversation,
and it really needs a careful approach.
What we can't do
is go in there ready to judge,
because who wants to be judged,
who wants to be made to feel less than?
In my cases, I try to get
a photograph of the senior
when they were a different age,
in a different context.
It helps me see more of that person.
We didn't know our parents
when they were our age.
There is a lifetime of history between us,
but there are still new ways to connect.
And there are so many practical
and unobtrusive fixes
that we can put in place.
Maybe it's doorbell cameras
or text alerts from the bank
that come to our phone,
or maybe we're just going to help out
with that huge mountain of paperwork
that keeps regrowing.
There is a whole industry out there,
and we need to find
the solutions together.
Also, this is a process,
so we need to keep it under review.
And if right now,
we're feeling overwhelmed,
then nobody said it would be easy,
and neither is getting old.
But we can't wait,
because if we wait,
we'll find out after
something has happened.
Like my family did,
or like Howard and Charlotte's family did.
When I first meet with victims
of elder crime,
it can feel really heavy.
They've taken a big blow
to their dignity and their self-respect.
They tell me that they feel
tired and foolish,
and sometimes, they even say
that they feel like they're done.
We try not to make this process
any harder for them.
As in, "Wow, you've really been
through a lot ...
But wait, there's more."
And we get to share
in their amazing resiliency
and their humor,
as we navigate our way
through this messy system together.
We can improve how the system responds
to their mistreatment.
We can ramp up prevention,
we can raise awareness,
and we can do a better job
protecting our own friends and family.
And who knows what lies ahead
for our future selves, either?
But now that we absolutely know
that elder abuse can happen to anyone,
it's time that we change that,
to make sure that it can't,
and it doesn't.