Abstract
Statistics on crime reveal that in the United States, as well as in many other countries, the amount of crime reported each year is declining. However, the amount of crime committed by older persons, 65 years and above, has been on a gradual increase. An analysis of trends in the criminality of older persons shows that, although the large majority of crimes committed by the older person are property crimes, older persons are arrested and convicted for almost every type of crime, including violent crime.
In this chapter, the relationship between older victims of crime and their criminal victimizers is examined. The research presented reveals that, in the large majority of personal crimes committed by elderly persons, including murder, assault, rape, and child molestation, the victims were family members, relatives, or close acquaintances. In the cases of property crimes in which older persons were victimized, in the large portion of the cases, the offender was not elderly and was a family member, relative, or friend. This was much lower than that found for the crimes against persons. Elderly persons who are victims of Internet crimes and hate crimes are victimized by a stranger in the large majority of the cases.
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Kratcoski, P.C. (2018). The Victim-Offender Relationship in the Criminal Victimization of the Elderly. In: Kratcoski, P., Edelbacher, M. (eds) Perspectives on Elderly Crime and Victimization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72682-3_6
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