The bill establishes clearer definitions of the crime of financial exploitation, which includes intentionally abusing the trust of an elderly or impaired adult to gain access to their money and assets.
The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2015, makes it a crime to use the person's money or assets for personal gain rather than to provide them with food, clothing, shelter and other care.
Penalties range from a misdemeanor to a felony depending on the amount of money diverted. The law also requires anyone convicted to make restitution.
Hassan was scheduled to discuss the law Monday morning at the Statehouse.
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Governor to discuss financial exploitation law
4 comments:
Increasing penalties does nothing to deter those who don't think about the penalties, especially those who think what they are doing is lawful, in many cases because the law is satisfied when the victim is just competent enough to sign his or her name. This was clearly the case which a lawyer recorded in the 3-minute video that is linked by tvfields.com (a video broadcast by ABC News)
I think increasing penalties doesn't have an immediate effect, like you said, tvfields, but down the road, it will.
Lawmakers have been increasing penalties for elder abuse for as long as I've been aware of the problem, going back more than 20 years. During this time, has the increase in penalties had the desired effect? Are fewer cognitively-impaired older adults being exploited? The answer is clearly no, which leads me to conclude that the increase in penalties is less of a factor than those factors which are responsible for the increase in the abuse. In other words, much more is needed to combat this abuse than increasing penalties. The problem is exactly what Detective Roubicek made clear in his book: lawmakers are less interested in doing what is needed than in making it look like they are doing what is needed.
Public awareness is an important step in making laws effective. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Pressure on lawmakers by the public can and will make a difference. We just have to keep getting the word out.
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