Cracked
By Judith Cork - 01/10/2008
Imagine tapping a large Easter egg, cracking it into a jigsaw of different sized pieces, the foil wrapper glistening and the comforting chocolate contents spilling out. Think of a different scenario, a hammer hitting a skull repeatedly, the bones cracking and the cranial spinal fluid oozing down the nostrils, the skin wrapper swollen beyond belief, blue and bruised. This is what happened to my father the week before Easter.
A man has now been sentenced, described by one brother as a “sad husk of humanity” and a “powder keg waiting to go off”. He is now encased in Armley jail, where his angry explosions can be contained, no longer doing damage to the vulnerable. He was homeless and without family, we are effectively fatherless and without comprehension. His brainless act leaving an old man brain damaged.
Thankfully, serious crime on older people is a rare event. The British Crime Survey shows that those most at risk of crime are 16-24 year old men, full-time students and the unemployed. In terms of those in our population who are “victims of violence”, 0.5% of men over 75 and 0.3% of women over the age of 75 are reported in this category and that equates to less than 20 people in total per year (the 75+ population is around 4.5m).
And yet research conducted for Age Concern a few years ago shows that older people and their families worry about crime. Though older people are less likely to be victims of crime the even small number of crimes against older people is hard to understand. The report says that older people are often targets for robbery, purse snatching, pick-pocketing, car theft, or home repair scams. They are more likely than younger people to face attackers who are strangers. During a crime, an older person is more likely to be seriously hurt than someone who is younger.
The actual impact of experiencing crime can be profound for many older people. A small scale Home Office study examined a group living in small units of sheltered accommodation and suggested that older victims of burglary decline in health faster than non-victims of a similar age and the impact of burglary is typically great. Two years after the burglary, they were 2.4 times more likely to have died or to be in residential care than their non-burgled neighbours.
Sir Ken MacDonald, the director of public prosecutions, recently said that “Feeling and being unsafe or 'at risk' has a significant negative impact on older people's health ... and can leave them isolated and unable to participate socially and economically in their community.” This is backed up by a further report from the Social Exclusion Unit report on “Ending Inequalities for Older People” where even for older people who have not experienced crime, the impact of fear of crime is still also very significant – acting as a constraint to full participation in community life. So, whether our older folk directly experience crime or just fear it, their quality of life suffers. They end up staying in watching Countdown rather than taking part in the countless opportunities for new, external stimuli and entertainment.
Before his attack, my 83 year old father’s main suffering was from angina and arthritis, both preventing him from moving quickly to dodge traffic or blows, but he still had a life worth living and one which he rightly deserved after years of hard slog and slavish family devotion and duty. I now want to bubble wrap my father, cushioning him from breakage, damage and pain, not to take away his freedom of movement, but because I recognise he is a real and precious gift and something to cherish for as long as possible. The dilemma, however, for all of us with ageing relatives is how best to respect and support their lives and independence, helping them to achieve a life worth living as they define it, and how to redefine that worth when the inevitable life events of accident, sickness, bereavement or plain brutality strike.
There are many high profile crimes in today’s society attracting media coverage from the horror of child kidnapping through to drunken drivers and dead Dianas. But maybe one of the biggest modern day crimes which really needs to be hammered home, is the fact that 20% of our older population live in poverty, 6 out of 10 are at risk of being malnourished in hospital and receive below average care when they actually need nutrition, privacy and dignity and many others are depressed and alone in their own homes. In this respect, as a society, we are guilty until measures are taken and consistent evidence provided to prove our innocence.
Judith Cork runs her own consultancy, Judith Cork Consulting, focusing on the issues and opportunities arising from the ageing population. See judith@judithcork.co.uk or www.judithcork.co.uk 01484 434 969