Does the Statutory Definition of “Elder Abuse” Matter?
In April 2016, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Al Franken (D-MN), introduced Senate Bill 2747 in the United States Senate. Carrying the title of “Elder Protection and Abuse Prevention Act,” one provision of the bill would amend existing federal law to redefine “abuse,” as that phrase is used in the Older Americans Act. The new definition would read:
The term “abuse” means the knowing infliction of physical or psychological harm or the knowing deprivation of goods or services that are necessary to meet essential needs or to avoid physical or psychological harm.
The existing language, defining abuse, provides:
The term “abuse” means the willful–
(A) infliction of injury, unreasonable confinement, intimidation, or cruel punishment with resulting physical harm, pain, or mental anguish; or
(B) deprivation by a person, including a caregiver, of goods or services that are necessary to avoid physical harm, mental anguish, or mental illness.
Is the proposed change mere semantics?
A quick search reveals that the new federal language is identical to language contained in at least one state’s statute, Rhode Island’s Section 42-9.2-2, used to define the scope of administrative authority for the state’s Elder Justice Prosecution Unit. One of the sponsors of the new bill is from Rhode Island.
However, Rhode Island’s criminal statutes do not provide an exact match. Rhode Island law does provide that it is a crime for any person “primarily responsible for the care of an adult with severe impairments” to “willfully an knowingly abuse, neglect or exploit that adult,” and it defines “abuse” as “subjection of an adult with a severe impairment to willful infliction of physical pain [or] willful deprivation of services necessary to maintain the physical or mental health of the person, or unreasonable confinement.” But, by removing any age restriction but narrowing the crime to victims with “severe impairments,” there is room for argument about application of that statute to all elderly victims, or those with “only” early stages of physical or mental impairment.
So, what is the reasoning behind the proposed change of the federal definition of “abuse?” Abuse of an elder person is not a “federal” crime. Certainly it would be useful to have the definition match any funding authorization, and perhaps that is a reason, as the new language mirrors the definition of abuse contained in the Social Security Act’s provision for block grants to states for social services and elder justice initiatives, at 42 U.S.C. Section 1397j(1).
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