Kathleen Horan
Kathleen Horan has worked at WNYC Radio since 2001 and been a reporter in the newsroom since 2006.
Proposal to Streamline Tracking of Elder Abuse
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
New York, NY –
A new report says there were more than 30,000 cases of elder abuse in New York State last year.
State senator Jeff Klein commissioned the report, which includes data from seven state agencies. Klein says that's part of the problem and he's proposed a bill to make one agency responsible for tracking elder abuse.
KLEIN: It will empower the Office of Children and Family Services to bring together data from different agencies on elder abuse. I think once we have that information in place, it can certainly lead to a lot of other effective enforcement.
REPORTER: Elder abuse can range from neglect, to physical attacks, to financial exploitation, and Klein says there's currently no uniform way to define these different kinds of abuse.
Klein's report says 90 percent of elder abuse incidents occur in domestic settings, and that financial exploitation is the fastest growing kind of elder abuse.
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