The Sexual Victimization of the Elderly: An Empirical Analysis of Officially Reported Incidents, 2007–2016

As “baby boomers” age through the lifecourse, elderly American's are projected to comprise more than 20% of the U.S. population by 2030 (Ortman, Velkoff, & Hogan, 2014). With a dramatic population increase anticipated, elder abuse and maltreatment has emerged as a focus of violence research. Elder sexual abuse is perhaps the least perceived, acknowledged, detected, and reported type of victimization (Roberto, Teaster, & Nikzad, 2007). The present work explores elder sexual abuse, drawing on 10 years (2007–2016) of officially reported incidents from National Incident Reporting System (NIBRS) data, to address several of the limitations identified by the National Research Council (2003) including: inconsistent definitions, unclear and inadequate measures, and a lack of population-based data. Results support significant differences in elder sexual abuse profiles across victim and perpetrator sex, age, race, relationship, residence, and offense type, highlighting the need to examine contextual differences in offenders, victims, and incident-based characteristics. Intervention, policy needs, and prevention are discussed.