Crime, Abuse and the Elderly WILLAN PUBLISHING Crime, Abuse and the Elderly Mike Brogden and Preeti Nijhar Published by: Willan Publishing Culmcott House Mill Street, Uffculme Cullompton, Devon EX 15 3 AT, UK Tel: +44(0)1884 840337 Fax: +44(0)1884 840251 e-mail: [email protected] Published simultaneously in the USA and Canada by: Willan Publishing c/o ISBS, 5804 N.E. Hassalo St, Portland, Oregon 97213-3644, USA Tel: +001(0)503 287 3093 Fax: +001(0)503 280 8832 © Mike Brogden and Preeti Nijhar 2000 The right of Mike Brogden and Preeti Nijhar to be identified as authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting copying in the UK issued by the Copyright Licensing Agencv Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 91 IE. First published 2000 Reprinted 2007 ISBN 10: 1-903240-02-6 (paper) ISBN 10: 1-903240-03-4 (cased) ISBN 13: 978-1-90324-002-1 (paper) ISBN 13: 978-1-90324-003-8 (cased) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound by TJI Digital, Padstow, Cornwall ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe; And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done; She gave her father forty-one.’ ‘My work was faultless. I provided the ultimate care. I prided myself on my experience in caring for people who were extremely ill. How dare they question my professionalism?’ (Dr Harold ‘Fred’ Shipman, HMP Strangeways, February, 2000) To Josie Dunn may she have a long and healthy Third (and Fourth) Age and Gopal Singh, scholar, mentor, and friend Contents Acknovvlegements vii Introduction 1 From Lizzie Borden to Dr Shipman 1 Demography and the criminological agenda 4 Private space and public space 5 Determinism versus free will 5 General reading 6 1 Abuse Versus Crime in Criminological History 7 The exclusion of criminology 7 Welfare versus justice responses to elder victimisation 14 Following child and spouse abuse 17 Further reading 22 2 The Mythologies of Elderly Victimisation 24 Introduction 24 The Golden Age myth - the modernisation thesis 25 The Golden Isles myth - neglect and abuse in comparative perspective 32 Further reading 36 3 Stereotyping the Elderly as Victims 37 Introduction 37 Ideologies - ageism, sexism, and the mythology of the elder victim 37 Needs-based definitions 40 Rights-based definitions 43 Synopsis of Chapters 2 and 3 46 Further reading 47 4 Victimisation in Private and Public Space 48 Introduction 48 Victimisation in private space 48 Victimisation in public space 56 Further reading 61 5 Old People and the Fear of Crime 62 Introduction 62 The problem of fear 62 Criticisms of the fear thesis 66 Synopsis of Chapters 4 and 5 74 Further reading 75 6 Victimisation in Private Spacc - the Household and Care Institutions 76 Introduction 76 Victimisation in the private space of the household External pressures 82 Victimisation in care and nursing institutions 85 The victim fights back - strategies of resistance 91 Synopsis of Chapter 6 93 Further reading 93 7 Sociological Explanations 1: Gender and the Political Economy of Older People 95 Introduction 95 What’s wrong with the abuse explanations 96 Feminist criminology and elder abuse 99 Elder victimisation - contributions from political economy 102 Further reading 112 8 Sociological Explanations II: Organisation, Power, Neutralisation, and Labelling 113 Introduction - from context to content 113 Exchange and power in organisational conflicts 113 Stratification, moral holidays, and strain theory 116 Labelling and social constructionism 119 Synopsis of Chapters 7 and 8 122 Further reading 122 9 The Elderly in the Criminal Justice Process I: Is there an Elderly Crime Wave? 124 Introduction 124 An elderly crime wave? 125 Social constructionism and the elderly criminal 127 Causes of crime by the elderly 132 Further reading 136 10 The Elderly in the Criminal Justice Process II: Experience of Arrest and Detention 137 Introduction 137 Leniency towards the elderly? 137 Imprisonment and the squeaky wheel syndrome 141 Synopsis of Chapters 9 and 10 149 Further reading 150 11 Conclusion - Towards a Criminology of the Elderly? 151 Introduction 151 The diversity of the elderly 151 Welfare versus criminal justice 152 Private space versus public space, intimates versus strangers 153 From structure to inter-personal relations 153 The lack of history 153 Bibliography 155 Author index 177 Subject index 183 Acknowledgements A book that consumes as much time as this one did accumulates many meanings and lessons for its authors - for it is predominantly joyful, occasionally trying and always an intense experience. The subject was first raised by Kevin McCaughan, of Help the Aged, who combines unusual criminal justice experience and humour, in prompting these concerns. This text could not have been written without the pioneering work of Claudine McCreadie and her colleagues at Action on Elder Abuse at King’s College. Preeti gives thanks to all her friends in England and Belfast, who regularly furnished fresh doses of love and laughter, especially Kalvinder who has added a few moments of irony to those endeavours. Memories of old friends like Janette Pinnock will always act as a source of inspiration. My short break in India was made fruitful and memorable by Harshi, who took care of mundane worries and on numerous occasions saved me from falling prey to them. Thanks also to Padma and Parmod. My parents are the foundation of everything I do and despite suffering neglect, extend ungrudging support and anchorage at every crucial juncture. I express my gratitude to I.S.N, without having to write in detail, will understand what it means to venture out on a ‘stormy morning ...’ and appreciate that at the end of the day ‘... the same blood runs through us’. Bobby, Tina, Surjit, Manni and Mandeep are aware of their own contributions. And finally there are my nieces, especially Sarina whose growing feet keep us on the ground and collectively have us dancing to her tunes. In Liverpool, Bill Dunford was his normal tolerant, human self, when faced with repetitive tap room monologues. Lorie Charlesworth’s cynicism of academics no longer shows through to the same extent now that she has joined the ranks of the pedagogic gerontocrats herself. Little could have been achieved in Belfast without the endurance of Keith Bryett and imagination of Moira Magee - especially given the bizarre actions by one individual who must remain nameless. Michael Kearney has the capacity to absorb rather more than his quotients of familial woes and still cheer others. Ray Geary and John Morison provided occasional liquid and verbal lubrication. Long may the publisher, Brian Willan, flourish in his autonomy from the multi-nationals. Introduction From Lizzie Borden to Dr Shipman The trial of Lizzie Borden in 1892 has been commemorated in limericks and verse as a vivid horror story of violence against older people. Borden was accused - on the basis of circumstantial evidence - of killing her elderly parents with an axe, in Fall River, Massachusetts. She was acquitted because the jury could not believe that a daughter and a woman could commit such a crime of parricide. That trial has several lessons for the study of crimes against the elderly - especially in the way it reduces Lizzie’s actions to those of a disturbed woman within a dysfunctional family. Normal people do not assault their parents. The affair provides a template against which to measure assumptions of personal and familial pathology - that only ‘sick’ people could injure or abuse elder kin. Lizzie Borden occupied two stereotypical roles - that of a daughter and that of a woman. In allegedly slaughtering her parents, she flouted both legal and moral injunctions. How could a daughter kill her own folk? How could a woman indulge in violent murders? Evidence was given of what abuse studies have variously referred to as a cycle of family violence, a dysfunctional family, and of personal pathology (see Chapter 3). For example, the father, Andrew Borden, a year earlier, had decapitated Lizzie’s pet pigeons. Mother Bridget was actually Lizzie’s stepmother and regularly feuded with her husband. At the trial, Lizzie was described by one witness as being that aberrant creature of strait-laced American society'-a lesbian. Witnesses claimed she suffered from (in the language of today) premenstrual tension. It was not until eighty years later that Western academics began to ask questions about such family apostasy. Initially the victimisation of older people was caricatured in the same way as in the Borden case. Accounts similar to those offered in Lizzie Borden’s trial appeared to explain family abuse. Pathology, irrationality of cause, dominated the early academic explanations. Initial studies concentrated on what the American media referred to as ‘granny-slamming’, and on female irresponsibility. (In the UK, similar investigations used the equally pejorative ‘granny-bashing’ rubric.) That pioneering research determined the scope of the future agenda. The victimisation of older people was mainly by family carers. Typical offenders were female, normally the daughters or granddaughters of the victim. Women like Lizzie Borden were doubly blameworthy. They had acted outside their prescribed role as females. Crime, and especially violent crime, was what men did - it was associated with masculinity not femininity. Women who acted in that way were peculiar, aberrant. 1