Elders, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System: Myth, Perceptions, and Reality in the 21st Century

Rating:
Summary: Rare research
Review: A growing population, mental illness, less tolerance for crime and feelings of desperation and despair are reasons why elderly people are committing more violent crimes, according to the book. Little research has been done about the topics addressed by a several contributors to the book. Each contributor, an expert on his or her topic of choice, took a massive amount of information and boiled it down to easy to understand statistics. They also included helpful charts.

Two stand-out chapters are Elders as Perpetrators by Edith Elisabeth Flynn and The Older Prisoner: Social, Psychological, and Medical Considerations by John J. Kerbs. Flynn said elder crime has become a major concern for policy-makers. Although violent crime by older people is on the rise, Flynn cautioned that overall arrests for that age group are down. Most elders are law-abiding, she said. As such, elders are best viewed as a stabilizing force in society and not as an emerging, new problem on the horizon of criminal justice. She adds, Though numerically small, some elders do engage in crime and violence and are quite capable of inflicting serious losses and harm. Kerbs says most of the country's older prisoners are not getting proper medical, psychological and social care. He says the older prisoner's physical, psychological and social needs are complex, and require health workers who understand those needs. Most prisons, he said, aren't equipped to provide that type of care. The editors, Max B. Rothman, Burton D. Dunlop and Pamela Entzel, choose well when selecting authors.

Rating:
Summary: Rare research
Review: A growing population, mental illness, less tolerance for crime and feelings of desperation and despair are reasons why elderly people are committing more violent crimes, according to the book. Little research has been done about the topics addressed by a several contributors to the book. Each contributor, an expert on his or her topic of choice, took a massive amount of information and boiled it down to easy to understand statistics. They also included helpful charts.

Two stand-out chapters are Elders as Perpetrators by Edith Elisabeth Flynn and The Older Prisoner: Social, Psychological, and Medical Considerations by John J. Kerbs. Flynn said elder crime has become a major concern for policy-makers. Although violent crime by older people is on the rise, Flynn cautioned that overall arrests for that age group are down. Most elders are law-abiding, she said. As such, elders are best viewed as a stabilizing force in society and not as an emerging, new problem on the horizon of criminal justice. She adds, Though numerically small, some elders do engage in crime and violence and are quite capable of inflicting serious losses and harm. Kerbs says most of the country's older prisoners are not getting proper medical, psychological and social care. He says the older prisoner's physical, psychological and social needs are complex, and require health workers who understand those needs. Most prisons, he said, aren't equipped to provide that type of care. The editors, Max B. Rothman, Burton D. Dunlop and Pamela Entzel, choose well when selecting authors.