Seniors Rights Victoria sometimes receives queries from family members of older people, lawyers and service providers about whether there should be specialised criminal offences for ‘elder abuse.’ This discussion paper aims to explore the laws already in place to prevent elder abuse, whether there should be a specific crime of elder abuse and the potential effect of such laws.
Seniors Rights Victoria’s position, drawn from available evidence and our casework experience, is that we have sufficient laws in place to address elder abuse, but these laws lack effective implementation.