Due to methodological challenges, and data quality and availability issues, a limited number of variables were included in the final dataset of police reports:
victim and alleged abuser’s age;
victim and alleged abuser’s gender;
alleged abuser’s relationship to senior;
type of abuse (using the Criminal Code section as a proxy); and
final outcome of an arrest or prosecution (i.e., disposition).
The EPS recognizes six types of abuse: physical,Footnote 27 financial,Footnote 28 psychological or emotional,Footnote 29 sexual,Footnote 30 neglectFootnote 31 and medication.Footnote 32 This study identified the type of abuse in a report using police charge data. Due to the low number of senior abuse reports that progress to police charges, this information was only available for one-fifth (20%; n = 141) of reports examined; these charges pertained to physical, financial, and psychological or emotional abuse.
