An alarming trend that comes to the forefront while studying abuse against the elderly is that most abusers are caregivers, who are responsible for the welfare of the elderly people they are subjecting to abuse.

As per the Administration on Aging, abuse of the elderly can occur either at home or an institutional setting, and can be categorized as follows:

• Physical abuse
• Sexual assault
• Emotional abuse
• Exploiting financially
• Neglect

What constitutes abuse differs from one state to the next. Most states have their own laws to keep crimes against senior citizens under control and to make elders feel safe, while every state in the United States has laws in place that criminalize all forms of abuse of the elderly. In Massachusetts and North Carolina, an adult who has more than enough means but declines to support an elderly parent, who needs to be looked after, can be imprisoned or fined by law. Some states have included offences like domestic violence, battery and sexual assault in laws for abuse of the elderly, while most states have special categorizations for senior citizens who are victims of murder, robbery, assault, and also carjacking.

Many of the states in the US are also realizing the perils that elderly citizens face from consumer fraud schemes and telemarketing schemes, and are beginning to incorporate these issues in their laws to protect elderly citizens. In some US states the punishment for crimes against the elderly are more than usual; in Nevada, an offence involving an elderly victim can lead to a prison term longer than what would have been allowed for the same crime involving a younger citizen.

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