Introduction
An earlier approach to this article’s topic was provided by Brillon in his 1987 monograph “Victimization and Fear of Crime among the Elderly”, part of Butterworths’ series Perspectives on Individual and Population Aging. The people about whom he wrote had survived at least one world war; they must have hoped their children would avoid the rigours they had experienced. The Canada of that period was gradually changing. Post-war levels of immigration had accelerated, and by 1981, 55 per cent of new arrivals in Canada were from visible minorities (Statistics Canada, 2008a), although “in that year, only 6.8 per cent of immigrant and 0.4 per cent of Canadian-born seniors were visible minorities” (Turcotte & Schellenberg, Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007, p. 276; emphasis added). Despite those demographics Canada remained familiar to Brillon’s seniors: a country where “two solitudes” co-existed.Footnote 1 It was this homogeneous Canada that Brillon’s work largely reflected, one that did not acknowledge the third “solitude” within Canada: that of its Aboriginal peoples. Such a focus is now impossible, as would be ignoring visible minorities.
This article assesses the ways in which the present population of older Canadian residents (not all are citizens) react to crime and the possibility of their own victimization. It largely looks at Canada as a federal nation rather than at the constituent parts, the provinces and territories, and focuses on specific groups in the nation as a whole alongside the larger group of older Canadian residents characterized by their lack of visible ethnicity. Such assessment is complicated by the lack of precise information relating to older people’s victimization. Available data are often not age-specific, which forces the use of estimates based on extrapolation rather than precise data.
The Criminological Context
Within the criminological context, older people have been regarded simply as potential victims, rather than as criminals themselves, largely because most young people grow out of criminal behaviour as they age. Older people have never grabbed criminologists’ imagination, perhaps for the same reasons that allowed women and ethnicity to be so comprehensively ignored for so long. These issues did not seem as interesting as the story of why young, white males offended. Even victims did not preoccupy criminologists until relatively recently, although historically they had played a crucial part in the prosecution of cases before the state took over their role (Kearon & Godfrey, Reference Kearon, Godfrey and Walklate2007; Landau, Reference Landau2006). Victims were viewed as part of the background, people to whom things happened, rather than as central to the workings of the criminal justice system.
There is now a far richer literature on victims, reflecting a broader understanding of what constitutes victimhood, largely thanks to those who asked critical questions about the extent of hidden victimization, such as family violence. There are also a plethora of crime prevention initiatives designed to protect communities and potential victims. This article is not the place to review the wider criminological literature on victims. Rather, its intention is to highlight the fact that criminology has largely failed to problematize ”aging”; to think about what meaning has been ascribed to the term and influenced the ways in which older people are perceived. Indeed, it is only relatively recently that older people, as criminals, have come to be regarded as an important subject for research; an aging prison population has encouraged criminologists to reassess their assumptions. Powell and Wahidin (Reference Powell, Wahidin, Wahidin and Cain2006) have suggested that critical gerontology has much to offer criminology, especially in understanding that “policy must not be steeped in the stereotypes of ageing, but must acknowledge and assess diversity and difference” (p. 24).
Fear of Crime
People’s fear of crime does not necessarily reflect the possibility, or actuality, of crime in their neighbourhood (Brogden & Nijhar, Reference Brogden, Nijhar, Wahidin and Cain2006; Farrall, Jackson, & Gray, Reference Farrall, Jackson and Gray2009; Fitzgerald, Reference Fitzgerald2008). Fear of crime can be irrational. It can be triggered by changing individual perceptions of whether or not neighbourhoods are “safe”, and such perceptions are not always the same for all age groups. Relatively slight changes in physical environments, such as increased littering or an increase in the presence of seemingly disreputable people, can alter people’s relationships to their surroundings and cause a growing sense of unease (Wilson & Kelling, Reference Wilson and Kelling1982). Innes (Reference Innes2004) suggested that “signal crimes” such as vandalism, sparking individual concerns about safety, are not necessarily the most serious offences. Similarly, Kohm (Reference Kohm2009) observed that there is a precise spatial element to fear of crime. He explored some of these issues in a high-crime neighbourhood in Winnipeg, showing that residents were more alarmed by “social disorder” (such as prostitution, drugs, and gangs) than by actual crime. Their reactions had no relationship to their “past experience with victimization” (p. 23). Personal experiences, such as being confronted by increased drunkenness or drug taking rather than the actual crimes associated with the disorder, are what created fear.
Larger changes, such as altered demography, can also instil feelings of fear, simply because they challenge personal understandings of what constitutes normality for an area. Moreover, a sense of safety can be affected by how embedded individuals feel in their communities. Do they have friends or are they isolated? Do they have stable housing? Being able to interpret situations in terms of their relative safety is an important and almost reflexive daily task, and losing confidence in the ability to interpret accurately can have an impact on an individual’s sense of security. This interpretive capacity is essential for older people, who feel more vulnerable to crime and victimization than younger ones (Turcotte & Schellenberg, Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007), despite their lower risk of actual victimization. As Brillon (Reference Brillon1987, p. 5) suggested, among older people fear, victimization, and vulnerability are experienced at two levels: general and subjective (vague fears); and concrete and objective (actual experience of victimization). However, Brogden and Nijhar (Reference Brogden, Nijhar, Wahidin and Cain2006) made the important point that fear of crime and worry about crime should not be treated as though they are synonymous, which they are not. These authors described “fear” as being more specific, and possibly based on personal experience, whereas “worry” is of a more general nature, relating to a variety of “social harms” (p. 45).
At the same time, people might be fearful of potential events which they themselves have labelled “criminal”, but which might not be legally defined as such. For an act to be criminal, there has to be a legal proscription against it; fearful people may assume that deviance and crime are terminologically interchangeable. Such legal distinctions are of little comfort to those who feel unsafe and usually do not cause them to alter their responses. Reactions to perceived lack of safety, such as the installation of higher levels of home security, may actually increase fear, because of the readier visibility of such precautions. They can also have a cumulative effect, in that neighbours might be encouraged to follow suit. All of this can happen without an increase in actual crime, yet leave some people feeling no safer.
Maintaining public safety is formally the responsibility of government, devolved to various policing forces. Yet, as Garland (Reference Garland1996) suggested, official state agencies are no longer proposing that they can provide complete security for citizens and residents. Although this reality has long been a part of public safety strategies, as even the most cursory review of Canadian provincial and federal government documents shows, there has been a concomitant move towards making individuals responsible for their own safety, in partnership with community groups. The adoption of “responsibilisation strategies” (Garland, Reference Garland1996) is now much more overt. At a macro (and political) level, offenders are characterized as being responsible for the choices they make. At a micro (and still political) level, communities and individuals are held responsible for the quality of the environment in which they live, as made explicit here:
Preventing crime and improving safety isn’t something government or the courts or the police can do alone, nor will it happen overnight. Albertans need to take responsibility at all levels. This is about individuals, families and communities stepping up and recognizing that many of the factors that contribute to crime are within their own hands. (Alberta’s Crime Reduction and Safe Communities Task Force, 2007; emphasis added)
Whether or not these groups are actually in a position to take responsibility for the safety or behaviour of individual members is not part of official discourse, and the citizen/resident who fails to conduct her life prudently is held accountable for her own actions and the consequences. People are enrolled in a state-sponsored enterprise whereby “citizens become crime-conscious, attuned to the crime problem … They are caught up in institutions and daily practices that require them to take on the identity of (actual or potential) crime victims, and to think, feel and act accordingly” (Garland & Sparks, Reference Garland and Sparks2000, p. 200).
Farrall et al. (Reference Farrall, Jackson and Gray2009) referred to the “reassurance” or “perception gap”, which is the public’s refusal to believe that crime is falling. Indeed, crime rates in Canada, based on police-recorded statistics, have been falling steadily since they peaked in 1991 (Statistics Canada, 2009a). Despite this, the present government has adopted a public rhetoric, and is implementing costly policies, at odds with this reality. At the time of the January 2010 prorogation of Parliament, 36 bills fell, and of these, 19 were linked to criminal justice. Most were re-introduced into the House. The Conservative government, in the midst of an election campaign as this is written, is promising to create an omnibus bill to ensure that all outstanding law and order legislation is passed within 100 days of its re-election. As Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in April 2010:
we understand there is a cost to keeping dangerous criminals behind bars – and we’re willing to pay it. ... This Government will always make decisions based on what is needed to keep Canadians safe, and the protection of Canadians must come first”. (Public Safety Canada, 2010a)
This type of language fits the description provided by Garland (Reference Garland1996) of a “criminology of the other, of the threatening outcast, the fearsome stranger, the excluded and the embittered [which is used] to demonize the criminal, to excite popular fears and hostilities, and to promote support for state punishment” (p. 461; emphasis in original). Older people might adapt to low-level feelings of insecurity, on the basis of their own observations and a growing awareness of their increasing frailty, but language such as that used by Toews is sometimes deliberately chosen in order to encourage people’s adoption of a particular political stance, rather than to inform them. The indiscriminate, deliberate, and often ill-informed use of “crime” as part of the political armoury can lead to heightened – and often unnecessary – fear of crime and victimization, especially among those like seniors, who already feel vulnerable.
Learning about Crime
It is impossible to obtain precise figures for actual rates of victimization, irrespective of age. Official crime statistics in Canada are derived from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR), which is based on incidents reported to, and then recorded by, the police. These statistics have been collected since 1962 and, because there are now two simultaneous sets of data being collected, are known as UCR1. The data in UCR1 includes the number of criminal incidents, their clear-up status, and information about who was charged. (It should be noted that the “seriousness rule” in Canada means that not all crimes linked to the same incident are counted in the UCR1.) The UCR2, which began in 1988, seeks to detail more fully the characteristics of incidents, victims, and offenders (Statistics Canada, 2009b). These data are not collected across all of Canada, so detailed “snapshots” are only available in the areas covered.
There are many reasons why people will not always report victimization to the police, including fear (of further victimization); shame (because of the relationship between victim and perpetrator); embarrassment (in terms of the circumstances of the supposed offence); thinking they will not be believed; thinking they will not be well-treated by the police; or simply thinking that the matter is too trivial. By contrast, increased reporting of victimization can be directly traced to knowing which incidents might be covered by insurance claims, or to publicized changes in police and judicial practices, such as the introduction of family violence courts in Alberta. The police exercise a great deal of discretion as to whether or not crimes are recorded. They also exercise discretion in terms of which offences they might decide to pursue proactively, leading to sometimes disproportionate charging rates in crimes such as impaired driving.
The figures produced by the UCR1 can be used by the police themselves as indicators of police effectiveness (if, for example, higher clear up rates are demonstrated for common assault). However, there can be a tension between the police’s need to achieve results in order to justify resources. Therefore, the same figures may simply reflect local decisions to prioritize dealing with common assault, at the expense of focusing upon other crimes. It is noteworthy that not all criminal offences are recorded, so the UCR is only a partial record of crime prevalence. Social surveys such as the General Social Survey (GSS), which are independent of the police, may provide a means of establishing more accurate rates of victimization and associated fear of crime, depending on the way in which they are constructed and administered (see Sauvé, Reference Sauvé2005). However, they will never be more than an overview of the estimated extent of criminal offences, fear of crime, and actual victimization.
Most seniors have a reduced risk of personal victimization, yet they still have a degree of fear of crime. While the obvious way of ascertaining the extent of this fear is by means of a survey, Farrall and Gadd (Reference Farrall and Gadd2004) analysed the ways in which survey questions are constructed. Asking “how fearful are you of crime?” elicits a response (intensity) different from “how often are you fearful of crime?” (frequency) and provides a more nuanced view. Using this style of questioning, they found that only eight per cent of their U.K. respondents “frequently experienced high levels of fear” (p. 131). Such results have implications for crime prevention strategies predicated on responding to the fear of crime, not least because some strategies, with their emphasis on the possibility of crime, might themselves increase fear.
Fear of crime can be very real, if more low level than some surveys might indicate, as Farrall and Gadd (Reference Farrall and Gadd2004) demonstrated. Fear may be engendered directly by actual experience of victimization, or indirectly through learning about experiences of family members, friends, colleagues, or neighbours. People also learn about crime from other sources. The most recent Newspaper Audience Databank figures in Canada show that in 2009, printed newspapers continued to be the primary source of general news information. However, in Canada only 47 per cent of those aged 18 and over read a printed newspaper on a daily basis, while use of the Internet to obtain news is increasing (Newspaper Audience Databank, 2010).
Internet use in Canada by those aged 65 years and over jumped from nearly 24 per cent in 2005 to almost 41 per cent in 2009 (Statistics Canada, 2010b), and it can be expected that these figures will continue to increase. Meanwhile, older seniors are less likely to be familiar with the Internet, although there are no separate usage figures available for each decade above the base age group of 65 years. Internet use is also affected by living area (fewer rural than urban residents use it) and income.
A significant group of seniors, then, remain reliant on print news, radio, and/or television for basic information. In these media, few crime reports provide context, such as the actual prevalence of the types of crime reported or the individual risk of victimization in the age group or area involved. Doyle’s (Reference Doyle2006) survey of the relevant literature shows that “the news media are saturated with accounts of crime and control” (p. 868) and that such portrayals in both news and entertainment differ “from the picture portrayed by official and other statistics” (p. 869), with structural reasons for crime generally being omitted. If, as the authoritative Pew Research Center (2010) report suggests, a third of all American newsroom jobs have disappeared since 2001, it is not unreasonable to presuppose similar pressures in Canadian newsrooms, leaving depleted ranks of staff “more reactive and less proactive” (Pew Research Center, 2010: unnumbered) in terms of independent journalism.
Does Fear of Crime among Older People Matter?
Difficulties in obtaining reliable information about the rates of victimization experienced by older Canadians mean that we have to extrapolate from the victimization experiences of all Canadians. Perreault and Brennan (Reference Perreault and Brennan2010) suggested that irrespective of the target, be it an individual assaulted or a household broken into, the emotional consequences are the same. Victims are left with the disturbing consequences of the act, most commonly feeling reactions of anger, confusion, and fear, which contribute to their becoming more cautious. Fear of crime and possible victimization matters, irrespective of a person’s age. Crucially for seniors, fear of crime can affect them at a time when, for some, their physical capabilities are lessened, making them feel more vulnerable. Simply anticipating the possibility of victimization can curtail everyday activities, while the consequences of actual victimization can be profound physical and psychological effects. Fear can deter seniors from participating in everyday activities; it can discourage them from using public transport, once they cease driving themselves. It can determine their place of residence and contribute to the emergence of more “gated communities” (which can lead to greater isolation). In short, fear can lead to decreased personal choices and mobility. These changes can have the ripple effect of a more housebound older community and could lead to increased reliance on social services, with the associated costs.
The Broader Picture
Focusing generally on older Canadian residents, 2004 GSS figures for self-reported incidents of crime show that “9.8% of Canadians aged 65 or older said they had been the victim of a crime in the past year compared with 31.5% of individuals aged 35 to 44 and 42.5% of persons aged 15 to 24”. Older men were a little more likely than senior women to have been victims (Turcotte & Schellenberg, Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007, p. 74). Tellingly, “common assault (level 1 assault) was the most prevalent offence committed against senior victims”, and this rate of victimization was eight times lower than against non-senior victims (Ogrodnik, Reference Ogrodnik2007, p. 9), which lends support to the supposition that older people are unnecessarily worried about their risk of victimization, as they are substantially less at risk than are younger people. Yet fear of crime can be potent. Fitzgerald (Reference Fitzgerald2008) reported that in Canadian urban settings, a significantly greater proportion of those aged 65 years and over admitted to higher levels of fear than did those between the ages of 25 and 44. Their fear was compounded by neighbourhoods perceived to have problems of “physical and/or social disorder”. All women, irrespective of age, were 3.7 times more likely to be fearful than were men.
The more recent 2009 GSS survey indicates that approximately one quarter of all Canadians aged 15 years and over reported being “a victim of a criminal incident in the preceding 12 months”, a percentage that remained unchanged from 2004 (Perreault & Brennan, Reference Perreault and Brennan2010: 10). There is no breakdown by age in the 2009 data thus far released, so the aforementioned 2004 GSS data remains the basis for present discussion. Turcotte and Schellenberg (Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007) did not discuss the ways in which older people cope with, or react to, the possibility of crime, but confirmed that victimization declines with age. Keown (Reference Keown2010) focused on a “core working-age population” (those between the ages of 25 and 54) and found a difference, depending upon gender, in how people tried to avoid crime. There were common perceptions of the amount of crime, yet women were “much more likely” to adopt routine precautions to avoid victimization (Keown, Reference Keown2010, p. 39).
Assessing exposure to violence is an example of the difficulties involved in determining the actual extent of victimization. Sections 265–268 of the Criminal Code relate to assault and, by extension, to some offences involving older people (Department of Justice, 2009). In 2007, older people represented just two per cent of all victims of police-reported violent offences, with victimization being most prevalent among 15- to 24-year-olds (Vaillancourt, Reference Vaillancourt2009). The question of reporting levels is important. Yet, there appears to be little statistical difference in reporting levels overall between seniors and non-seniors: about half of all violent offences against seniors are reported to the police (Gannon & Mihorean, Reference Gannon and Mihorean2005; Ogrodnik, Reference Ogrodnik2007; Vaillancourt, Reference Vaillancourt2009). Some offences against older people remain hidden from view because of the nature of the offence and the relationship between offender and victim. Older people might not always be in a position to respond to the GSS because their family or an institution might prevent access, or they might simply be reluctant to speak to others about personal matters. Again relying on police-reported data, it is notable that “more than one-third of all violent incidents against seniors” were committed by family members; adult children, overwhelmingly sons, were the main perpetrators, closely followed by spouses (Vaillancourt, Reference Vaillancourt2009, p. 43).
Such points are admittedly based on low figures and, as Ogrodnik (Reference Ogrodnik2007) clarified with respect to GSS figures, “less than 1% of all seniors with a current or previous spouse reported experiencing any type of violence by a partner in the 12 months preceding the survey, compared to 2% of those under the age of 65” (p. 14). (The 2009 GSS figures simply refer to those aged “over 45”, so an exact comparison cannot be made [Brennan, Reference Brennan2011, p. 9].) Yet there is still an interesting underlying issue: where are seniors actually most safe? Home has been assumed to be a protective factor for older people (a point also made by Brillon, Reference Brillon1987). For women, however, that is not always the case, as they might be living with the victimizer. Older men are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes at the hands of strangers, whereas women suffering similar crimes are “almost equally likely to be victimized by their spouse as their grown child” (Sinha, Reference Sinha2011, p. 28). Brennan (Reference Brennan2011) wrote that “in 2009, less than one-quarter (22%) of spousal violence victims stated that the police found out about the incident, down from 28% in 2004 [and that] the decline in reporting occurred primarily among female victims” (p. 11). It cannot be assumed that an older woman who has remained with a partner through years of domestic violence, often accompanied by emotional abuse, will suddenly start talking about the abuse during a social survey interview once she has passed the age of 65.
It would also be unwise to assume that either police or GSS figures reflect the true incidence of spousal and family abuse relating to older people. Indeed, Sinha (Reference Sinha2011) has suggested that data from a “sub-set of police services show[s] that the rate of family violence against seniors has increased by 14% since 2004” (p. 27; emphasis added). Again, there are questions about the reliability of these figures, because they are derived from police services covering only 57 per cent of the Canadian population, thereby illustrating the continuing difficulty in finding accurate information about victimization of older people.
Discussion of crimes such as these can perpetuate the perception that older people are more vulnerable to victimization than are younger individuals. It is worth repeating that this is not true: they are much less likely to be victimized than are younger people, as both UCR and GSS-generated research show. But perceptions of safety, rather than precise knowledge of risk, influence the daily lives of older people.
Elder Abuse
Separating violent victimization of older people from crimes committed against them by those in a relationship of trust is sometimes difficult. Action on Elder Abuse, a U.K.-based nongovernmental organization, defined abuse and neglect of older people as “a single or repeated acts, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within a relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person”, a statement which was subsequently adopted by the World Health Organization (http://www.elderabuse.org.uk/About%20Abuse/What_is_abuse%20define.htm). Older people may be subjected to a number of forms of abuse, including physical abuse; sexual abuse and exploitation; neglect; psychological or emotional abuse; economic or financial abuse; and spiritual abuse. Aspects of all of these constitute crimes under the Criminal Code, and Section 718.2 specifically
requires the court, when delivering a sentence, to take into account evidence that the offence was motivated by age- or disability-based bias, prejudice or hate. The Court must also consider whether, in committing the offence, the offender abused a position of trust or authority. (Department of Justice, 2009, p. 2)
Brillon (Reference Brillon1987) was almost ahead of his time in the way he dealt with elder abuse, in that it was not then a subject frequently discussed. A strongly argued final chapter in his monograph charted the extent of then-available research into elder abuse and raised a number of questions as to how older people might best be safeguarded in the future. He highlighted the painful issues thrown up by physical dependency and mental frailty and how these might have an impact on seniors themselves as well as on families attempting to provide for aging parents.
Statistics Canada (2010a) population projections show that, by 2036, seniors are expected to constitute 23 to 25 per cent of Canada’s total population. Conceivably, significant difficulties in planning for this aging population lie ahead. Gerontologists will continue to be concerned about issues such as the implications for health problems, like dementia. Criminologists, seeing the same projections, would be concerned about the potential for increased victimization of older people.
Most family-related assaults of older people occur in their homes, which they frequently share with their assailant (Turcotte & Schellenberg, Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007), and which can be another bar to disclosure. Seniors living in institutions are not necessarily any safer – staff members can neglect them, physically abuse them, or extort money from them – and the older person is no more likely to report abuse in that situation, because of their physical and mental vulnerability (Canadian Network on Elder Abuse, undated). Using the collective term of “elder abuse” is not always helpful, as it disguises a range of behaviour that might simply be criminal. For example, is a caregiver who steals from an older person someone exploiting a relationship of trust, or simply a comparative stranger who has taken advantage of a criminal opportunity? Looking at some of the aforementioned possible forms of abuse, much of it happens in private circumstances, but so does a great deal of crime. This leaves the “doorkeeper[s to older people] whose motivation might be … familial, commercial or bureaucratic” (Brogden & Nijhar, Reference Brogden, Nijhar, Wahidin and Cain2006 p. 43) possibly wielding a great deal of power relative to older people’s physical and emotional well-being. An extra difficulty facing older people is that their social networks of support outside their families often decrease, leaving fewer vigilant eyes focused upon them. Their friends die; they might no longer be able to attend clubs or churches. They slowly become increasingly dependent on family members or other caregivers.
Seniors’ isolation can be unnoticed by others and can also be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. Older people living with family members can be forced to hand over large sums of money to another family member, or a senior living alone can be compelled by neighbours to provide money or goods. Seniors may fall victim to telephone scams, or to the unexpected workman touting for jobs and demanding payment beforehand. Many of the victims of Ponzi schemes, such as that run by Earl Jones in Montreal, are seniors, who then see their savings disappear. Although seniors are least likely among all age groups to report “financial abuse” (Ogrodnik, Reference Ogrodnik2007), they also provide very fruitful targets. Moreover, as the Law Commission of Ontario (2008) has made clear, many do not know their legal rights (if, indeed, they are cognitively in a position to pursue them). In analyzing these cases, gerontologists might distinguish between abuse and fraud, while criminologists might settle simply for crime. (It is interesting to note that official reports, such as that written by Ogrodnik (Reference Ogrodnik2007) and the Department of Justice (2009), discuss financial abuse as though it were interchangeable with fraud.)
Other Victimization: Older People and Hate Crime
Hate crimes represent less than one per cent of all incidents reported to the police although the 2004 GSS reports a rate of 3 per cent for such offences (Dauvergne, Scrim, & Brennan, Reference Dauvergne, Scrim and Brennan2008). The most recent data (Dauvergne, Reference Dauvergne2010), which are based on reports to the police, provide limited accuracy. A more complete picture of the scale of such offending can be obtained from research undertaken by Dauvergne et al. (Reference de Léséleuc and Brzozowski2006) which combined data from the Hate Crime Supplemental Survey (a survey of hate crimes compiled by police within Canada), the UCR2, and the GSS.
In 2008, hate crimes linked to race represented almost 55 per cent of all offences reported to the police, followed by those linked to religion (26%) and those linked to sexual orientation (16%). Of the racially motivated offences, half targeted Blacks, while nearly two thirds of religiously motivated hate crimes were anti-Semitic (Dauvergne, Reference Dauvergne2010), a percentage replicated in the earlier combined study (Dauvergne et al., Reference Dauvergne, Scrim and Brennan2008). Both victims and the accused in all hate crimes are much more likely to be younger people, but that is not to dismiss the impact such crime can have on older people. For example, almost half of all hate crimes reported to the police related to property offences. Ninety per cent of these were ‘mischief’ offences (the criminal offence of property damage), so were relatively low on the seriousness scale (Dauvergne et al., Reference Dauvergne, Scrim and Brennan2008). However, when buildings such as synagogues or mosques are vandalized, for example, the psychological impact can readily spread into the wider community associated with those faiths.
Then, too, older members of faith and ethnic groups might see an attack on a younger member of their groups as a sign of decreasing personal security. With respect to race, being (or feeling) targeted can also lead to greater mistrust by one visible minority group with respect to another such group, as well as a generalized fear of those not classified as a visible minority (meaning the larger Canadian population). It is perception that matters and for some older people, hate crimes can increase their sense of isolation. As Dauvergne et al.’s research (2006) showed, “victims of hate crime more often reported feeling worried than did victims of other crime when walking alone at night and while waiting [for] or using public transportation” (p. 6), an outcome that can have a particular impact upon older people.
Hate crimes related to sexual orientation are difficult to assess accurately, because of the need for caution when relying on the figures produced for those 55 years of age and over, as Beauchamp (Reference Beauchamp2004) clarified. (There is no age breakdown beyond this.) Bearing in mind that the GSS first asked Canadians about their sexual orientation only in 2004, it is perhaps too soon to expect great detail. However, across all the ages surveyed, it was apparent that the rate of violent victimization for gays and lesbians was 2.5 times higher than that of their heterosexual peers (Beauchamp, Reference Beauchamp2004). Although same-sex sexual relationships were decriminalized in1969, some older gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Canadian residents continue to experience marginalization and hostility, to the extent that many are reluctant to disclose their orientation when in care homes or retirement complexes (Brotman, Ryan, & Cormier, Reference Brotman, Ryan and Cormier2003). From this, it might be deduced that a proportion of older people, having spent their youth hiding their sexual orientation, will be reluctant to report their victimization.
Race, Victimization, and Fear
In exploring the broad issues relating to crime, fear, and victimization of older people, I have thus far deliberately limited discussion of race. Any discussion of older residents in Canada should include this variable from the outset, but much of the source material makes no attempt to differentiate between different groups of older Canadian residents. Here, I attempt to rectify that omission. The changing demographic face of Canada means that significant groups of older people are linked by birth or heritage to countries other than Canada. For example, the Chinese first moved here in the late 1850s, with the Japanese arriving some two decades later. The initial wave of Ukrainian immigration began in 1891; German immigrants first arrived two centuries earlier, albeit in limited numbers. The French and those originating from the United Kingdom generally have the oldest history of immigration to Canada.
In citing these various groups as examples, it is obvious that each group – as representative of others – would have a compelling story attached to its older people, but this paper cannot allow for such an expansive vision. Despite the wide diversity of immigrants within Canada, the term “visible minority” would only apply to two of those just-cited groups. Too frequently, there is an assumption that the majority population – those categorized as White – represent the norm, a point reinforced by the present government as it has campaigned for the so-called “ethnic” vote during the present election. This classification of White allows non-whites, such as Aboriginal peoples, Blacks, and other visible minorities to be problematized as having racial characteristics, while the White population is not.
Mirchandani and Chan (Reference Mirchandani, Chan, Chan and Mirchandani2002) suggested that the word “racialisation” be used to describe the assumption that specific racial groups possess the characteristics ascribed to them by other groups or individuals. When crime is factored into discussions of racial groups, too often it is the racialized attitude to these groups that prevails. If there is no countervailing view in media accounts of crime involving racialized groups, the reported events can be assumed true in ways which they do not merit. This can feed fear of crime. What is too often forgotten is that these same racialized groups can also fear those groups to which racial characteristics are not ascribed. For example, in the specific case of Canada, Aboriginal older people may be fearful of Whites, especially those exercising authority, such as the police.
Criminology began to grapple with some of these issues at roughly the same time as it began to be recognized, at the end of the 1970s, that women could not be ignored as subjects of criminological concern. Even today, ethnicity is often “ghettoized within criminological texts, rather than taken as an explanatory variable throughout discussions of crime. The population statistics that Brillon (Reference Brillon1987) studied were derived from the 1981 Census of Canada, and they help to explain the absence in his monograph of any focus on Aboriginal peoples and visible minorities. Census data on ethnic origins have been collected since 1901, but prior to 1981 only the respondent’s paternal ancestry was noted, leaving an incomplete view of individuals’ ethnic origins and the range of ethnicities in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2008b). In 1981, multiple ethnic origins were officially noted, but this did not necessarily mean that supporting data relative to specific ethnic groups would always be available from other government departments, or that it would readily have identified older residents.
There has been debate in Canada about whether or not nationwide justice statistics on race and ethnicity should be collected, and, largely, they are not. Some suggest that the collection of such data will increase discrimination, whereas others say that it is a public right to have full details made available (see Mirchandani & Chan, Reference Mirchandani, Chan, Chan and Mirchandani2002). In the United Kingdom, Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 mandates that annual statistics on race, gender and the criminal justice system should be compiled and published. These data provide useful evidence of the ways in which specific groups disproportionately encounter a criminal justice system which does not reflect the diversity of the UK. By means of further research, the assembled data enable a closer examination of why there should be this intersection of race, crime, and gender. Such information would arguably be useful in Canada, particularly in relation to the disproportionate engagement of Aboriginal peoples with the criminal justice systemFootnote 2. In light of Canada’s continuing absorption of new immigrants, the information would also be helpful in terms of understanding other visible minorities’ contact with the criminal justice system.
While the foregoing is a general discussion of the issues, it also provides a backdrop to why older Aboriginal and visible minority people might have different perceptions of their likelihood of victimization. It also helps explain their more general fear of crime. In an effort to dispel the frequently assumed homogeneity of Canada’s older residents, the discussion from here on will focus on those who are supposedly “visible minorities”. The use of this term implies that they are people of colour; that is, that they are defined by being non-White. However, the first peoples of Canada, the Aboriginal people, must not be included in such catch-all terminology, as will be explained next.
Older Aboriginal Canadians
The 2006 census shows that Aboriginal peoplesFootnote 3 comprise 3.8 per cent of the total Canadian population and that half of the Aboriginal population now lives in urban centres. Between 1996 and 2006, their numbers grew six times faster than the growth rate (8%) of the non-Aboriginal population, and they are also a younger population overall, with a median age of 27 years, as opposed to 40 years for non-Aboriginal peoples (Statistics Canada, 2009c). Census statistics reveal an alarming lack of congruity between the percentage of older non-Aboriginal Canadians and older Aboriginal Canadians. Just under five per cent of self-identified Aboriginal peoples are 65 years or older, compared with 13.5 per cent of non-Aboriginal Canadians.Footnote 4 Health Canada (see Dumont-Smith, Reference Dumont-Smith2002) has suggested that 55 should be the age at which Aboriginal people are termed older, specifically because of their reduced life expectancy. Wilson, Rosenberg, Abonyi, and Lovelace (Reference Wilson, Rosenberg, Abonyi and Lovelace2010, p. 370) also noted this disparity, but suggested that the “general youthfulness” of the Aboriginal population, rather than any health factors, makes 55 a “more appropriate age cut-off”. The most up-to-date analytical report on visible minorities from Statistics Canada (2006), focusing solely on seniors, also identified older Aboriginal peoples as being 55 years and over.
The reasons for the age difference between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal Canadians can be traced directly to Canada’s colonial history of assimilation and oppression (Dickson-Gilmore & LaPrairie, Reference Dickson-Gilmore and LaPrairie2007; Fournier & Crey, Reference Fournier and Crey1997; Miller, Reference Miller2000). Enforced relocations from ancestral lands, the removal of children to residential schools, and the “sixties’ scoop” have left a legacy of addiction, family dysfunction, and lateral violence that continue to affect present-day Aboriginal communities (Dion Stout & Kipling, Reference Dion Stout and Kipling2003; Miller, Reference Miller1996; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP], 1996; Special Senate Committee on Aging, 2009).
Aboriginal people, especially those in rural areas, are generally much more likely to be living in overcrowded conditions than are non-Aboriginal peoples. Additionally, 44 per cent of First Nations’ people living on reserves occupy houses in need of major repair, in contrast with seven per cent of non-Aboriginal people (Statistics Canada, 2009c). These same conditions may lead to “the transmission of infectious diseases, and can add to the risk of injuries, mental health problems, tensions within the family, and violence” (Statistics Canada, 2008c, p. 2). Aboriginal peoples have suicide rates twice as high as the non-Aboriginal population (Kirmayer et al., Reference Kirmayer, Brass, Holton, Paul, Simpson and Tait2007) and live with high levels of family violence, both physical and sexual (Bopp, Bopp, & Lane, Reference Bopp, Bopp and Lane2003). Yet, the “destructive coping strategies” adopted by many residential school “survivors” continue to have an inter-generational impact (Chansonneuve, Reference Chansonneuve2007; Dion Stout & Kipling, Reference Dion Stout and Kipling2003). In 2005, half of Aboriginal peoples had a “total income below $16,752, almost $10,000 less than for the non-Aboriginal population”, with registered Indians living on reserves having an even lower median income level (Cooke, Guimond, & McWhirter, Reference Cooke, Guimond and McWhirter2008; Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2008).
This gross accumulation of social factors disadvantaging Aboriginal peoples is the backdrop for their encounters with the criminal justice system. For example, while Aboriginal peoples are 3.8 per cent of the total Canadian population, they are 19 per cent of the federal prison population overall, with Aboriginal women comprising 34 per cent of the federal women’s population (Correctional Service of Canada, 2010). The same social factors might also contribute to their victimization.
Canadian criminology has come late to the realization that the country’s Aboriginal peoples are disproportionately criminalized at all levels of the justice system. For too long, Aboriginal people have been assumed to be the victimizers, rather than the victims, with official and academic commentators too readily failing to analyse this position. Older Aboriginal people have largely not featured in academic criminological discussion. It is not simply criminology – a relatively new discipline – that has failed in this respect. Wilson et al. (Reference Wilson, Rosenberg, Abonyi and Lovelace2010) have noted that “prior to 1985 almost nothing was written about older Aboriginal peoples”, and indeed, that a “search of the Canadian Journal on Aging [undertaken in 2010 revealed that] ... since 2000, there had not been a single article published where the explicit focus had been on older Aboriginal people” (p. 370).
This absence from the literature, as well as government reports, makes obtaining information about the prevalence of victimization among older Aboriginal people problematic. Once again, we are obliged to surmise, based on knowledge of Aboriginal demographics and the prevalence of victimization among younger age groups. The 2004 GSS, when discussing seniors as victims of crime, presented them as a unified group, undifferentiated by ethnicity (see Ogrodnik, Reference Ogrodnik2007). When the GSS focused on Aboriginal peoples and their victimization, as in 2004, it failed to provide consistent references to age, looking most frequently at the group at higher risk of both offending and being victimized, that is, young males aged 15 to 24 years. The only other age group referred to by the GSS was the over-35 group, a cluster determined by the relatively small number of Aboriginal peoples in the survey samples.
As noted earlier, seniors are more likely to report their victimization to the police than are younger Canadians (Ogrodnik, Reference Ogrodnik2007), but the statistics make it impossible to determine the numbers of Aboriginal seniors present among the larger cohort. When considering Aboriginal people as victims, the closest we can get to a clearer picture is to note that overall they are three times more likely than non-Aboriginal people to experience violent victimization, at a rate of 192 incidents per 1,000 population but only among the 35 and older age-group (Brzozowski, Taylor-Butts, & Johnson, Reference Brzozowski, Taylor-Butts and Johnson2006).
In the territories, Aboriginal people comprise 85 per cent of the population in Nunavut, 51 per cent in the Northwest Territories, and 23 per cent in the Yukon. Together, these areas show a rate of 315 violent incidents per 1,000 residents aged 15 years and over, a rate of violence that is three times higher than in the rest of Canada (de Léséleuc & Brzozowski, Reference de Léséleuc and Brzozowski2006). Indeed, 37 per cent of northern residents in these three groups said they had been victimized at least once in the preceding year, compared with 28 per cent of provincial residents. Significantly, “property crimes [were] only slightly more common than violent incidents” whereas “in the provinces in 2005, the number of property-related crimes reported by police was four times higher than the number of violent crimes” (de Léséleuc & Brzozowski, Reference de Léséleuc and Brzozowski2006, p. 16). Unlike residents of the rest of Canada, where violent incidents are twice as likely to happen outside the home, northern residents are equally as likely to be violently victimized inside the home as out (de Léséleuc & Brzozowski, Reference de Léséleuc and Brzozowski2006). This is not to ignore the 65 per cent of crimes that are recorded as “other” Criminal Code offences. Among these, 45 per cent are classified as “mischief” offences. Such offences may reflect levels of disorder and incivility that can have a significant impact upon communities.
Aboriginal women have a particularly high risk of victimization (Brzozowski et al., Reference Brzozowski, Taylor-Butts and Johnson2006; Chartrand & McKay, Reference Chartrand and McKay2006). In the wider senior population, the 2004 GSS revealed that “less than 1% of all seniors with a current or previous spouse reported experiencing any type of violence by a partner in the 12 months preceding … compared to 2% of those under the age of 65” (Ogrodnik, Reference Ogrodnik2007, p. 14). Bearing in mind that spousal violence among Aboriginal peoples is reportedly three times higher than the rate evident among non-Aboriginal Canadian residents (and that such violence does not necessarily cease with older age), it can again be expected that Aboriginal seniors will experience higher rates of spousal violence than their non-Aboriginal counterparts. Aboriginal people are also more likely to know the person who perpetrated a violent crime against them (Brzozowski et al., Reference Brzozowski, Taylor-Butts and Johnson2006).
The GSS does not include data representing all Aboriginal communities across Canada. As Landau (Reference Landau2006) clarified, the 2004 GSS included only the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut as a pilot study; in 2009, data were collected as a separate endeavour and have yet to be published. A further weakness of the GSS is its reliance upon random digit dialling (RDD) for obtaining survey data. As Sinha (Reference Sinha2011) has noted, “the proportion of households with a landline telephone may be low on some Indian reserves and settlements” (p. 11, footnote 7). Yet despite these flaws, the GSS still provides more convincing evidence on rates of Aboriginal victimization than the UCR, which requires actual reporting of incidents to the police. There is a continuing mistrust of the police among Aboriginal peoples, leaving them reluctant to have contact. For example, more than half of those surveyed for the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Survey said they had “little or no confidence in the criminal justice system in Canada” and “comparisons with other research suggest they are more than twice as likely as Canadians generally to have low confidence” (Environics Institute, 2010, p. 99; see also Chartrand & McKay, Reference Chartrand and McKay2006).
There are well-documented instances of police lack of professionalism, discrimination, and brutality with respect to Aboriginal peoples (Hamilton & Sinclair, Reference Hamilton and Sinclair1991; Razack, Reference Razack2000; RCAP, 1996; Wright, Reference Wright2004), and the police, who are the gatekeepers to the justice system, are remembered as those who historically enforced colonial policies which contributed to the destruction of Aboriginal families. As a consequence of all these factors, the full extent of Aboriginal people’s victimization is not reflected in the UCRs (Bopp et al., Reference Bopp, Bopp and Lane2003; Brzozowski et al., Reference Brzozowski, Taylor-Butts and Johnson2006; Gannon & Mihorean, Reference Gannon and Mihorean2005; Landau, Reference Landau2006).
Aboriginal peoples (and many among both visible and sexual minorities) might also be assessed by contested notions of victimhood which, as Landau (Reference Landau2006) suggested, “reflect the structural locations of race, class, gender, sexuality and other social characteristics” (p. 17). These attitudes can lead to the idea that some victims precipitate their own victimization, whereas others are seen as “innocent” casualties of events. Aboriginal people often experience these attitudes first-hand when involved with the police.
Based on the foregoing, it is reasonable to infer that the rate of violent victimization for older Aboriginal peoples will exceed the rate of 12 incidents for every 1,000 older people in the general Canadian population (Gannon & Mihorean, Reference Gannon and Mihorean2005). It is also reasonable to conclude that, overall, they will experience greater rates of victimization. The dysfunction within Aboriginal communities and families occasioned by the economic and social factors arising from colonialism does not cease simply because a cohort within a population has aged. The 2001 GSS (later repeated in the 2004 GSS) showed low levels of fear of crime among Aboriginal peoples, while “54% of northern residents said they were ‘very satisfied’ with their personal safety” (de Léséleuc & Brzozowski, Reference de Léséleuc and Brzozowski2006, p. 12). This might seem puzzling and contradictory but – while acknowledging that not all northern residents are Aboriginal - there is a wider point linked to violent victimization of Aboriginal peoples. As Chartrand and McKay (Reference Chartrand and McKay2006) suggested in their authoritative and extensive review of Aboriginal victimization, such figures belie the prevalence of their victimization and perhaps reflect the “normalization” of violence among Aboriginal communities.
Older Visible Minority Residents
Aboriginal peoples would not, of course, refer to themselves as being among those classified as “visible minorities” in Canada, but they might see themselves as occupying a “racialised space” in Canada (see Razack, Reference Razack2000). Furthermore, they might possibly see White people, to whom racial characteristics are not commonly ascribed, as “visible”, even if not now a minority. Canada annually welcomes almost a quarter million new permanent residents, together with approximately 200,000 temporary residents. Brillon’s (Reference Brillon1987) monograph, which prompted this article, was written at a time when just under 100,000 permanent and nearly 80,000 temporary residents were being admitted each year to Canada. But even then, the traditional source regions (Europe and the United States) had been superseded by what was collectively identified as Asia and Africa. Most new residents came from these two regions and almost 13 per cent came from what was termed “other America”, such as the West Indies and Guyana (Chiswick, Reference Chiswick1987).
Immigrants and visible minorities are not synonymous. The 1986 Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour” (Statistics Canada, 2006; emphasis added). The 2006 Canadian Census showed that just over 16 per cent of Canada’s total population self-identified as belonging to a visible minority, a marked increase from the 4.7 per cent who similarly identified in 1981, when counts of this grouping were first produced. Immigration projections suggest that by 2017 approximately one fifth of Canada’s population will be members of visible minorities (Statistics Canada, 2008a). The 2006 census also revealed that just over seven per cent of the visible minority population was 65 years of age and over. (Unlike the Aboriginal senior population, visible minority older people do not have a reduced life expectancy, so are not classified as being “older” by the age of 55.) Similarly, as with the earlier data on Aboriginal peoples, much of the information available about visible minorities does not report age differences.
Recent patterns of immigration have had a considerable impact on the diversity of Canada’s cities and towns, as visible minorities are more likely to live in large urban centres. Their more recent arrival in Canada means that “fewer are likely to be eligible for Canadian public pension plans” and they will also have had “less time to save for retirement” (Turcotte & Schellenberg, Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007, p. 271), which can determine the neighbourhoods in which they live. The National Advisory Council on Aging (2005) also supports the view that visible minority seniors (and other immigrants) are more likely to live in low-income households, whereas Perreault (Reference Perreault2008) showed that they appeared to be more disturbed by “social disorder” (such as drugs, drunkenness, and prostitution) than non-visible minorities, again possibly reflecting the type of neighbourhood in which they could afford to live.
Many of these visible minority seniors do not have English or French as their first language, which could mean they have restricted access to services readily available to other Canadian seniors and leave them overly dependent on family members as well as open to the possibility of abuse. This isolation can make it hard for them to report victimization directly to the police. As well, visible minorities appear to find the police less approachable than do other groups (Perreault, Reference Perreault2008). Moreover, they might not know where to go for assistance, if indeed they did wish to proceed (Law Commission of Ontario, 2008). Although the GSS showed that immigrant seniors (including those from visible minorities) claimed the same rates of victimization (10 per cent) as non-immigrant seniors (Turcotte & Schellenberg, Reference Turcotte and Schellenberg2007), it might well be that some visible minority seniors are reluctant to admit to certain types of victimization (such as abuse and hate crimes) out of shame and fear.
Some of these comments are obviously based on more-general observations about visible minorities within Canada. As Dumont-Smith (Reference Dumont-Smith2002) lamented in relation to Aboriginal seniors, there is insufficient work being done to uncover the extent of victimization in that community. The same argument can be made for visible minority seniors.
Conclusion
Older people are far less at risk of victimization than their own fear of crime would indicate. Conveying this message to them is not so easily done because of the competing messages imparted by both the media (that most crime is violent) and politicians (that law-abiding citizens need to be kept safe). In viewing older people’s victimization and fear of crime, one of the most alarming aspects is how invisible older people are, both in government justice research and in the criminological literature, and consequently, how little is conclusively known. An article such as this should not need to make assumptions derived from research into younger cohorts. With the additional central variables of race and ethnicity, older people’s fear of victimization and crime acquires layers of complexity; we cannot assume that all seniors in Canada have a shared experience. Researchers should focus more precisely on seniors, using an intersectional analysis that considers socioeconomic circumstances, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.
From a criminological perspective, gerontology faces three critical issues. The first relates to the need to conduct more research into the needs of both Aboriginal and visible minority seniors in terms of how they experience victimization and fear of crime (which is not to suggest that results for the two groups will be the same). The second issue is linked to the expected increase in the number of older people residing in Canada by 2036, if current projections should prove accurate (see Statistics Canada, 2010a). There will not only be more seniors, but they will have a longer lifespan and perhaps a greater need for protection from some of those charged with their care. Forestalling and identifying elder abuse will be one of the moral issues associated with an aging population.
Finally, the third issue also has a moral dimension. The present government’s focus on a “law and order” agenda will lead to increasing numbers of older prisoners, who already comprise 19 per cent of the total federal prisoner population (Public Safety Canada, 2010b). Federal prisoners are classified as “older” once they reach the age of 50, as it is estimated that “the aging process is accelerated by approximately 10 years” within prisons because of factors such as lack of access to adequate health care (Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2008, unnumbered). Collectively, these prisoners will have contributed to other older people’s fear of victimization, but most will eventually be released into the community and will need the same levels of care as other older Canadian residents. There should not be different levels of worthiness among our older people.
From the perspective of a criminologist, these are the issues with which gerontologists should grapple if they are truly to be seen as keeping abreast of the challenges to their discipline. Criminology is slowly adapting to the same considerations.
