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Antisocial behavior of the elderly
Antisocial Behavior
of the Elderly
By L. J. EPSTEIN, c. MILLS AND A. SIMON
HE ELDERLY OFFENDER has only rarely been a subject of study, and relatively little has been written about him other than what is given in annual arrest and prison reports. The present study investigated the frequency and causes of arrests in San Francisco of individuals 60 years old or older, and certain characteristics of those arrested. Interviews were conducted with a sample of persons arrested for drunkenness. The data reported here do not in&de follow-up studies of the individuaIs arrested indicating whether they were brought to trial, acquitted or convicted, or data concerning their eventual disposition. Two types of data will be discussed. First, certain limited information was obtained for every person 60 years of age or over arrested during a period of four months during 1967-1968. Permission was obtained from the San Francisco Police Department to obtain data from the City Jail Arrest Ledger, which contains for every person arrested (over 18 years of age), name, address, sex, age, and charge. It should be noted that the United States Census1 reveals that San Francisco is somewhat unusual in the age distribution of its population, in that 16.5 per cent of its total population (780,000) is 60 years of age or older, whereas for the state of California this figure is 12.5 per cent and for the United States as a whole, 13.4 per cent. Second, a randomly selected sample of persons aged 60 or older arrested for drunkenness was interviewed. A member of the project staff who identified himself as being associated with the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute and the University of California Medical Center requested permission of each prisoner to interview him. Only two persons declined to be interviewed, although many refusals were anticipated both by the police and by members of the study team. The Uniform Crime Reports for 19672 indicate a total of 4.2 million arrests of persons 18 years of age or over in the United States in 1967, from about 4566 arresting agencies concerned with a total population of about 146 million. Of these, 225,510, or 5.4 per cent of the total arrests, were persons 60 years of age or older. In San Francisco, it was found that during all of 1967 there were 2429 arrests of persons 60 years of age or older, which amounted to only 5.3 per cent of all persons 18 years of age or older arrested in that period, despite the relatively larger proportion of elderly resident.
T
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ELDERLY OFFENDER The data reported
here are based on a comparison of certain characteristics
Supported by CaliforniaState Department of Mental Hygiene Grant l-56. L. J. EPSTEIN, M.D., C. MILLS, B.S., AND A. SIMON, M.D.: Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute and the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Calif.
36
COMPREHENSIW PSYCHIATRY, VOL. 11, No. 1 (JANUARY), 1970
ANTISOCML
BEHAVIOR
37
OF ELDERLY
Table l.-Arrests RXC
by Race
Sample 1967-1968
1967 Total Arrests Age 18 or Over (N=45,677) c7 ,LI N
Age 60 or Over (N=722) N % White Negro Orientd Indian Other
635 66 9 6
8a 9 1 1
31,235 12,666 277 962
68 28 1 2
6
1
537
1
of 722 elderly offenders arrested during the four sample months and of all offenders over 18 years of age in San Francisco during 1967.” Table 1 indicates that the elderly offender in San Francisco, in contrast to all adult offenders, is predominantly white (88 per cent of those studied). This is not out of keeping with the distribution of the elderly population of San Francisco, where 90 per cent of the residents 60 years of age or older are white and 5.2 per cent are black. As in the younger age group oriental offenders were less frequent than might be anticipated from their numbers in the community. The Unifomr Crime Reports for 1967 indicate that the number of males arrested in the United States was substantially higher in all age groups. In San Francisco, almost six times as many males as females were arrested, and in the population aged 60 or over fifteen times as many males were arrested. Of the 41 women arrested, 13 were arrested for charges other than drunkenness. These included eight arrests for petty theft, two for traffic offenses, one for minor fraud, one for possession of heroin, one for murder, and the cause of one arrest was unknown. As was true of the male arrests, the causes for the women’s arrests were, with few exceptions, relatively minor. A comparison of elderly arrests with arrests of all adults in San Francisco is given in Table 3. As to likelihood of being arrested, adults under age 60, who constitute three-fourths of all adults in San Francisco, are about five times more likely to be arrested than are adults over age 60. Four out of five elderly arrests are for drunkenness, whereas this is the cause of only one out of two of all adult arrests. This is in accord with the Uniform Crime Reports
Table Z.-Arrests by Sex Sex
Sample 1967-1968 Age 60 or Over (N=722)
Male Female
1967 Total Arrests Age 18 or Over (N=45,677)
N
%
N
%
681 41
94 6
39,356 6,321
86 14
38
EPSTEIN,
Table S.-Causes
Cause
Drunkenness Traffic (not involving alcohol ) Petty theft Gambling Disturbing the peace Aggravated assauh Drug violations Resisting an officer Contributing to delinquency of a minor Battery Indecent exnosure Grand thef; Robberv Murder- or manslaughter
(other than in auto) other
MILLS
AND
SIMON
of Arrest
Sample 1967-1968 Age 60 or Over (N=722) N %
1967 Total Arrests Age 18 or Over (N = 45,677) N %
810 36
82.3 4.9
20,769 379
45.5 .S
36
4.9
17 17 9 ”
2.3 2.3 1.2 .7 .3 .3
2277 204 666 414 1992 43 101
5.0 .5 1.4 .9 4.4 .l .2
.3 .3 .1 .1 .l
1056 70 423 379 39
2.3 .2 .9 .8 .l
16,865
36.9
;. 2
of 1967, which show that two out of three arrests of the elderly were for drunkenness and this proportion was appreciably higher than for younger adults. Although a greater percentage of arrests of the elderly than of all adults was for drunkenness, traffic offenses, gambling, disturbing the peace, aggravated assault, resisting an o5cer, indecent exposure, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the likelihood of an older person being arrested for any of these offenses is appreciably less than for adults under age 60. Certain offenses that constitute about one-third of all adult arrests were absent in the older group. Among these were forgery, fictitious checks, desertion, malicious mischief, arson, extortion, prostitution, and a large variety of miscellaneous minor offenses. Assaultive behavior was unusual and tended to occur within the family or rooming-house setting, The only murder in the age group over 60 was that of a man by his wife following an argument. It is worthy of note that for many of the I.8 per cent of the subject population whose arrests were for other than drunkenness, alcoholic intotication played an important role in the arrest. For example, a woman had her husband arrested for disturbing the peace because she feared for her safety because of his rage while intoxicated; and a bartender caused a similar arrest of an elderly patron who insisted upon being served although already intoxicated. Our attention next focused upon two groups, those arrested for drunkenness and those arrested for sexual offenses, the former because of the large number of such arrests and the latter because of the emphasis placed upon them in various references to arrests of the elderly.425
ANTISOCIAL
BEHAVIOR
OF
39
ELDERLY
ARRFSTS FOR
I~RUNKENNESS
A sample drawn from the Arrest Ledger included 200 persons consecutively arrested for drunkenness who were 60 years or older (average age was 64). Of this group, 86 per cent were between 60 and 69 years of age. Arrests of persons 70 years of age or over were infrequent and represented only 12 per cent of this group; arrests of persons over age 80 represented 2 per cent of the group; and no one over age 90 was arrested. There were only 10 women (5 per cent) in the sample, and their arrests appeared to be idiosyncratic. For example, whereas the majority of men were arrested lying on the sidewalk or in a doorway or walking with difficulty, arrests of women more frequently were associated with a complaint to the police about their behavior. For example, one woman 75 years old, after drinking relatively little in a neighborhood bar, became insulting and abusive to the bartender, who called police for aid and “protection.” The attitude of jail personnel toward the elderly person arrested for drunkenness is striking. Ordinarily, when any prisoner enters the City Jail and is interviewed by jail personnel, the examining room or area is securely locked; however, with elderly persons arrested for drunkenness, the door of the examining room leading to the corridor tends to be left unlocked. It is noteworthy, also, that jail personnel will enter the drunk tank alone but rarely will enter the cells of other prisoners unless another officer is standing by. It was the conclusion of our project personnel that jail personnel appeared to feel what might be described as “good natured compassion” toward these “prisoners,‘” although they tended not to spend a great deal of time with them. Even so, they tended to know many by name and to recognize many others, a function, it was pointed out, of the frequently repeated arrests in this group. This was not true of the great majority of other prisoners. It is evident that jail personnel did not rcgnrd these elderly prisoners as criminal, but rather as unfortunate, “down on their luck,” and in need of help. A sample of 100 men 60 years of age or older who were arrested for drunkenness and admitted to the jail while one of the investigators was present, was interviewed, using a structured schedule. Each person was asked whether he felt his arrest had been justified and whether he had been treated fairly in the jail. About two-thirds of the prisoners expressed the opinion that their arrest had been justified and said they were not upset about it. Those who believed their arrests were not justified gave the following reasons, in order of frequency: (1) I was not hurting anybody. (2) I was not drunk. (3) I was on my way somewhere and could have made it. (4) I wasn’t stumbling or unable to take care of myself. (5) Miscellaneous reasons: For example, “they misunderstood my limp for being drunk and unable to walk,” “they mistook my epileptic fit for having passed out.” Even though slightly more than one-third of the group thought their arrests had been unjustified, 97 per cent said they had been treated fairly at the jail. Seven of the 100, however, complained about such things as poor and uncomfortable sleeping accommodations and the fact that tranquilizing medication had not been given to them. Only one person complained about the quality of the food.
40
EPSTEIN,
MILLS
AND
SIMON
The views and opinions of the arresting oficers about older persons arrested for drunkenness appeared consistent with those of prisoners and of jail personnel. Two arresting officers whose patrol areas had for some time included a section of the city that contains many alcoholics were questioned concerning their interaction with persons such as those in our sample. They agreed rather emphatically that they do not see the alcoholic, especially the elderly alcoholic, as a law breaker but rather as an unfortunate individual whom they characterize as sick. They also expressed the view that this is not a police problem, they do not like the idea of arresting these old people, they are chagrined that hospitals will not accept them unless they are severely physically or mentally disabled or unconscious, and they see themselves as extending a helping hand by means of such arrests. “If I didn’t arrest them, they’d wake up without shoes, with their pockets cut out and maybe beaten up.” They expressed anger at the increase in assaults by a variety of predatory individuals upon elderly alcoholics, to whom they referred in such terms as “my group” or “my boys.” They view arrest as part of a “drying out” process in which the person arrested is often a willing participant and, indeed, not infrequently asks to be arrested for this purpose. It is thus evident that elderly males arrested for drunkenness (and they represent 80 per cent of the arrests of persons aged 60 years or older in San Francisco) are not seen as criminals by the officers who arrest them or by the staff at the jail who supervise them while they are prisoners or by themselves. Despite this, all three groups participate in the arresting process, which is seen by them as a nonpunitive procedure and as the only available source for assistance at this time. All three groups tend to view the procedure as tantamount to brief, though at times uncomfortable, hospitalization. The arresting officer and the jailer view these prisoners as ill and in need of supervised care in a sheltered setting; in fact, they spontaneously expressed the view that hospitalization, rather than incarceration in a jail, is preferable. The prisoner himself, moreover, in the majority of cases does not bear resentment toward the arresting officer and with few exceptions expresses the view that he is well treated in jail. A number of anecdotes were told describing the variety of ways in which arrest and imprisonment often are actively sought by this group. These findings appear to support the present trend, despite a recent Supreme Court decision, to question the appropriateness of arrest for drunkenness, The &dings also indicate that arrests for drunkenness of the elderly are not often associated with antisocial or assaultive behavior, although they are not infrequently associated with drunk driving. The findings are in accord, also, with a recent report by Bittners concerning the frequency with which police deal with offenders as ill rather than as criminal, especially when the offenses are minor. He suggested that the involvement of police in such situations is often tantamount to giving psychiatric first aid and is a pacifying procedure whereby the individual may be removed for a short period from a troublesome or potentially troublesome setting. The treatment of elderly alcoholics as “quasi-patients” in jail settings appears to be an alternative to unavailable hospital or other medical care and highlights the need for adequate treatment for them in appropriate setting.
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF ELDERLY ARRESTS
FOR
41 SEXUAL
OFFENSES
Only four arrests for sexual offenses were recorded for our 722 subjects over age 60 during the four-month period under study. All of these were minor, two being for indecent exposure to adults and two for superficial advances to children, superficial in that they consisted of either a pat or a kiss. During all of 1967 there was in San Francisco a total of 2% sexual offenses by adults, of which only five involved individuals over 60 years of age: two for indecent exposure, two for sexual advances to children, and one, concerning which details are not available, of a woman over age 65 for “committing a lewd act in a public place.”
The paucity of such arrests in this age group raised the question of whether the prevailing sentiment concerning the elderly “sexual offender” is such that the police cause the offender to be hospitalized rather than arrest him. Informal discussions with members of the police detail assigned to sexual offenses revealed that they endeavor not to arrest persons of any age for “minor nuisance” sexual acts, namely, those that are not of an aggressive, assaultive, or otherwise serious character or that do not “arouse complaints.” For example, they related several instances of indecent exposure involving elderly men in a school neighborhood, where the police attempted to calm the parents of the children and urged the families of the exhibiting individuals to maintain closer supervision. To study the extent and role of hospitalization of elderly sexual offenders, data were obtained concerning the hospitalization of persons over 60 years of age at the San Francisco General Hospital for whom sexual problems were, at least in part, associated with their hospitalization. In conjunction with a long-range research program in geriatric psychiatry, extensive data were collected during 1959 on all admissions of persons 60 years of age or older to the psychiatric wards of the San Francisco General Hospital. Within this group (N = 534), 24 patients (I5 males and 9 females) were identified as having problems related to sexual behavior involved in their admission. With few exceptions, the sexual problem appeared to be a function of the patient’s confusion associated with a chronic or acute brain syndrome. ,4n cxample is a 77-year-old man who, while confused, undressed in a restaurant. With only four exceptions, the incidents of sexual behavior noted for these patients occurred in their residences. Examples arc a 73-year-old woman who walked about “semi-exposed” in her apartment house, and a 71-year-old man whose pajamas frequently were unbuttoned. For about half of these persons, the problem was that they refused to wear clothes while at home. Other examples in which the patients’ families were disturbed include the wife of a 77-year-old man who complained he was “too sesy;” the daughter-in-law of a 74-year-old man who complained that he occasionally pinched her posterior and “approached her ardently? the daughter of a TS-year-old man who complained that her father had made advances to both her daughter and herself; the family of an 87-year-old woman who complained that she looked in the mirror at herself, while nude, for hours; and 3 patients who were described as being preoccupied by sexual matters. In only one situation, that of a 75-
42
EPSTEIN,
MILLS
AND
SIMON
year-old man who molested a 9-year-old girl and attempted intercourse with her, was the situation regarded as other than minor. In only one other instance outside the home was a child involved, when a 66-year-old very confused man kissed a 4-year-old girl. Thus, it is evident that hospitalization is not used as a substitute for arrest for sexual offenses of the aged, since with very few exceptions hospitalization of elderly patients where sexual problems are noted refer to behavior at home that is annoying or embarrassing to the family and presents a problem in home care, but can scarcely be considered as dangerous or as a “sexual offense.” In summary, were it not for drunkenness, very few older people (60 years of age or over) would be arrested in San Francisco. If this is true nationally, and the Uniform Crime Reports appear to indicate that it is, it certainly merits further consideration. Among theories one might suggest is that antisocial behavior subsides with age in the sense that issues and problems that produce anxiety are less common as one grows older, or perhaps visible antisocial behavior subsides with age in the same way as does narcotics addiction. Other possibilities are that as people get older they may learn how to stay out of trouble or that some of the motives for criminal behavior may have diminished in strength. REFERENCES 1. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census: U.S. Census of Population, 1960, Final Report PC( l )-6B, General Population Characteristics, Cahfomia. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office. 2. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 1967. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office.
3. San Francisco Police Department, Bureau of Criminal Information: Monthly Statistical Reports, 1967. 4. Moberg, D. 0.: Old age and crime. J. Crim. Law 43:764-776, 1953. 5. Sutherland, E. H.: Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia, EPPincott, 1934. 6. Bittner, E.: The police on skid-row: A study of peace keeping Amer. Social. Rev., 32:699-715, 1967.
of the Elderly
By L. J. EPSTEIN, c. MILLS AND A. SIMON
HE ELDERLY OFFENDER has only rarely been a subject of study, and relatively little has been written about him other than what is given in annual arrest and prison reports. The present study investigated the frequency and causes of arrests in San Francisco of individuals 60 years old or older, and certain characteristics of those arrested. Interviews were conducted with a sample of persons arrested for drunkenness. The data reported here do not in&de follow-up studies of the individuaIs arrested indicating whether they were brought to trial, acquitted or convicted, or data concerning their eventual disposition. Two types of data will be discussed. First, certain limited information was obtained for every person 60 years of age or over arrested during a period of four months during 1967-1968. Permission was obtained from the San Francisco Police Department to obtain data from the City Jail Arrest Ledger, which contains for every person arrested (over 18 years of age), name, address, sex, age, and charge. It should be noted that the United States Census1 reveals that San Francisco is somewhat unusual in the age distribution of its population, in that 16.5 per cent of its total population (780,000) is 60 years of age or older, whereas for the state of California this figure is 12.5 per cent and for the United States as a whole, 13.4 per cent. Second, a randomly selected sample of persons aged 60 or older arrested for drunkenness was interviewed. A member of the project staff who identified himself as being associated with the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute and the University of California Medical Center requested permission of each prisoner to interview him. Only two persons declined to be interviewed, although many refusals were anticipated both by the police and by members of the study team. The Uniform Crime Reports for 19672 indicate a total of 4.2 million arrests of persons 18 years of age or over in the United States in 1967, from about 4566 arresting agencies concerned with a total population of about 146 million. Of these, 225,510, or 5.4 per cent of the total arrests, were persons 60 years of age or older. In San Francisco, it was found that during all of 1967 there were 2429 arrests of persons 60 years of age or older, which amounted to only 5.3 per cent of all persons 18 years of age or older arrested in that period, despite the relatively larger proportion of elderly resident.
T
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ELDERLY OFFENDER The data reported
here are based on a comparison of certain characteristics
Supported by CaliforniaState Department of Mental Hygiene Grant l-56. L. J. EPSTEIN, M.D., C. MILLS, B.S., AND A. SIMON, M.D.: Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute and the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Calif.
36
COMPREHENSIW PSYCHIATRY, VOL. 11, No. 1 (JANUARY), 1970
ANTISOCML
BEHAVIOR
37
OF ELDERLY
Table l.-Arrests RXC
by Race
Sample 1967-1968
1967 Total Arrests Age 18 or Over (N=45,677) c7 ,LI N
Age 60 or Over (N=722) N % White Negro Orientd Indian Other
635 66 9 6
8a 9 1 1
31,235 12,666 277 962
68 28 1 2
6
1
537
1
of 722 elderly offenders arrested during the four sample months and of all offenders over 18 years of age in San Francisco during 1967.” Table 1 indicates that the elderly offender in San Francisco, in contrast to all adult offenders, is predominantly white (88 per cent of those studied). This is not out of keeping with the distribution of the elderly population of San Francisco, where 90 per cent of the residents 60 years of age or older are white and 5.2 per cent are black. As in the younger age group oriental offenders were less frequent than might be anticipated from their numbers in the community. The Unifomr Crime Reports for 1967 indicate that the number of males arrested in the United States was substantially higher in all age groups. In San Francisco, almost six times as many males as females were arrested, and in the population aged 60 or over fifteen times as many males were arrested. Of the 41 women arrested, 13 were arrested for charges other than drunkenness. These included eight arrests for petty theft, two for traffic offenses, one for minor fraud, one for possession of heroin, one for murder, and the cause of one arrest was unknown. As was true of the male arrests, the causes for the women’s arrests were, with few exceptions, relatively minor. A comparison of elderly arrests with arrests of all adults in San Francisco is given in Table 3. As to likelihood of being arrested, adults under age 60, who constitute three-fourths of all adults in San Francisco, are about five times more likely to be arrested than are adults over age 60. Four out of five elderly arrests are for drunkenness, whereas this is the cause of only one out of two of all adult arrests. This is in accord with the Uniform Crime Reports
Table Z.-Arrests by Sex Sex
Sample 1967-1968 Age 60 or Over (N=722)
Male Female
1967 Total Arrests Age 18 or Over (N=45,677)
N
%
N
%
681 41
94 6
39,356 6,321
86 14
38
EPSTEIN,
Table S.-Causes
Cause
Drunkenness Traffic (not involving alcohol ) Petty theft Gambling Disturbing the peace Aggravated assauh Drug violations Resisting an officer Contributing to delinquency of a minor Battery Indecent exnosure Grand thef; Robberv Murder- or manslaughter
(other than in auto) other
MILLS
AND
SIMON
of Arrest
Sample 1967-1968 Age 60 or Over (N=722) N %
1967 Total Arrests Age 18 or Over (N = 45,677) N %
810 36
82.3 4.9
20,769 379
45.5 .S
36
4.9
17 17 9 ”
2.3 2.3 1.2 .7 .3 .3
2277 204 666 414 1992 43 101
5.0 .5 1.4 .9 4.4 .l .2
.3 .3 .1 .1 .l
1056 70 423 379 39
2.3 .2 .9 .8 .l
16,865
36.9
;. 2
of 1967, which show that two out of three arrests of the elderly were for drunkenness and this proportion was appreciably higher than for younger adults. Although a greater percentage of arrests of the elderly than of all adults was for drunkenness, traffic offenses, gambling, disturbing the peace, aggravated assault, resisting an o5cer, indecent exposure, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the likelihood of an older person being arrested for any of these offenses is appreciably less than for adults under age 60. Certain offenses that constitute about one-third of all adult arrests were absent in the older group. Among these were forgery, fictitious checks, desertion, malicious mischief, arson, extortion, prostitution, and a large variety of miscellaneous minor offenses. Assaultive behavior was unusual and tended to occur within the family or rooming-house setting, The only murder in the age group over 60 was that of a man by his wife following an argument. It is worthy of note that for many of the I.8 per cent of the subject population whose arrests were for other than drunkenness, alcoholic intotication played an important role in the arrest. For example, a woman had her husband arrested for disturbing the peace because she feared for her safety because of his rage while intoxicated; and a bartender caused a similar arrest of an elderly patron who insisted upon being served although already intoxicated. Our attention next focused upon two groups, those arrested for drunkenness and those arrested for sexual offenses, the former because of the large number of such arrests and the latter because of the emphasis placed upon them in various references to arrests of the elderly.425
ANTISOCIAL
BEHAVIOR
OF
39
ELDERLY
ARRFSTS FOR
I~RUNKENNESS
A sample drawn from the Arrest Ledger included 200 persons consecutively arrested for drunkenness who were 60 years or older (average age was 64). Of this group, 86 per cent were between 60 and 69 years of age. Arrests of persons 70 years of age or over were infrequent and represented only 12 per cent of this group; arrests of persons over age 80 represented 2 per cent of the group; and no one over age 90 was arrested. There were only 10 women (5 per cent) in the sample, and their arrests appeared to be idiosyncratic. For example, whereas the majority of men were arrested lying on the sidewalk or in a doorway or walking with difficulty, arrests of women more frequently were associated with a complaint to the police about their behavior. For example, one woman 75 years old, after drinking relatively little in a neighborhood bar, became insulting and abusive to the bartender, who called police for aid and “protection.” The attitude of jail personnel toward the elderly person arrested for drunkenness is striking. Ordinarily, when any prisoner enters the City Jail and is interviewed by jail personnel, the examining room or area is securely locked; however, with elderly persons arrested for drunkenness, the door of the examining room leading to the corridor tends to be left unlocked. It is noteworthy, also, that jail personnel will enter the drunk tank alone but rarely will enter the cells of other prisoners unless another officer is standing by. It was the conclusion of our project personnel that jail personnel appeared to feel what might be described as “good natured compassion” toward these “prisoners,‘” although they tended not to spend a great deal of time with them. Even so, they tended to know many by name and to recognize many others, a function, it was pointed out, of the frequently repeated arrests in this group. This was not true of the great majority of other prisoners. It is evident that jail personnel did not rcgnrd these elderly prisoners as criminal, but rather as unfortunate, “down on their luck,” and in need of help. A sample of 100 men 60 years of age or older who were arrested for drunkenness and admitted to the jail while one of the investigators was present, was interviewed, using a structured schedule. Each person was asked whether he felt his arrest had been justified and whether he had been treated fairly in the jail. About two-thirds of the prisoners expressed the opinion that their arrest had been justified and said they were not upset about it. Those who believed their arrests were not justified gave the following reasons, in order of frequency: (1) I was not hurting anybody. (2) I was not drunk. (3) I was on my way somewhere and could have made it. (4) I wasn’t stumbling or unable to take care of myself. (5) Miscellaneous reasons: For example, “they misunderstood my limp for being drunk and unable to walk,” “they mistook my epileptic fit for having passed out.” Even though slightly more than one-third of the group thought their arrests had been unjustified, 97 per cent said they had been treated fairly at the jail. Seven of the 100, however, complained about such things as poor and uncomfortable sleeping accommodations and the fact that tranquilizing medication had not been given to them. Only one person complained about the quality of the food.
40
EPSTEIN,
MILLS
AND
SIMON
The views and opinions of the arresting oficers about older persons arrested for drunkenness appeared consistent with those of prisoners and of jail personnel. Two arresting officers whose patrol areas had for some time included a section of the city that contains many alcoholics were questioned concerning their interaction with persons such as those in our sample. They agreed rather emphatically that they do not see the alcoholic, especially the elderly alcoholic, as a law breaker but rather as an unfortunate individual whom they characterize as sick. They also expressed the view that this is not a police problem, they do not like the idea of arresting these old people, they are chagrined that hospitals will not accept them unless they are severely physically or mentally disabled or unconscious, and they see themselves as extending a helping hand by means of such arrests. “If I didn’t arrest them, they’d wake up without shoes, with their pockets cut out and maybe beaten up.” They expressed anger at the increase in assaults by a variety of predatory individuals upon elderly alcoholics, to whom they referred in such terms as “my group” or “my boys.” They view arrest as part of a “drying out” process in which the person arrested is often a willing participant and, indeed, not infrequently asks to be arrested for this purpose. It is thus evident that elderly males arrested for drunkenness (and they represent 80 per cent of the arrests of persons aged 60 years or older in San Francisco) are not seen as criminals by the officers who arrest them or by the staff at the jail who supervise them while they are prisoners or by themselves. Despite this, all three groups participate in the arresting process, which is seen by them as a nonpunitive procedure and as the only available source for assistance at this time. All three groups tend to view the procedure as tantamount to brief, though at times uncomfortable, hospitalization. The arresting officer and the jailer view these prisoners as ill and in need of supervised care in a sheltered setting; in fact, they spontaneously expressed the view that hospitalization, rather than incarceration in a jail, is preferable. The prisoner himself, moreover, in the majority of cases does not bear resentment toward the arresting officer and with few exceptions expresses the view that he is well treated in jail. A number of anecdotes were told describing the variety of ways in which arrest and imprisonment often are actively sought by this group. These findings appear to support the present trend, despite a recent Supreme Court decision, to question the appropriateness of arrest for drunkenness, The &dings also indicate that arrests for drunkenness of the elderly are not often associated with antisocial or assaultive behavior, although they are not infrequently associated with drunk driving. The findings are in accord, also, with a recent report by Bittners concerning the frequency with which police deal with offenders as ill rather than as criminal, especially when the offenses are minor. He suggested that the involvement of police in such situations is often tantamount to giving psychiatric first aid and is a pacifying procedure whereby the individual may be removed for a short period from a troublesome or potentially troublesome setting. The treatment of elderly alcoholics as “quasi-patients” in jail settings appears to be an alternative to unavailable hospital or other medical care and highlights the need for adequate treatment for them in appropriate setting.
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF ELDERLY ARRESTS
FOR
41 SEXUAL
OFFENSES
Only four arrests for sexual offenses were recorded for our 722 subjects over age 60 during the four-month period under study. All of these were minor, two being for indecent exposure to adults and two for superficial advances to children, superficial in that they consisted of either a pat or a kiss. During all of 1967 there was in San Francisco a total of 2% sexual offenses by adults, of which only five involved individuals over 60 years of age: two for indecent exposure, two for sexual advances to children, and one, concerning which details are not available, of a woman over age 65 for “committing a lewd act in a public place.”
The paucity of such arrests in this age group raised the question of whether the prevailing sentiment concerning the elderly “sexual offender” is such that the police cause the offender to be hospitalized rather than arrest him. Informal discussions with members of the police detail assigned to sexual offenses revealed that they endeavor not to arrest persons of any age for “minor nuisance” sexual acts, namely, those that are not of an aggressive, assaultive, or otherwise serious character or that do not “arouse complaints.” For example, they related several instances of indecent exposure involving elderly men in a school neighborhood, where the police attempted to calm the parents of the children and urged the families of the exhibiting individuals to maintain closer supervision. To study the extent and role of hospitalization of elderly sexual offenders, data were obtained concerning the hospitalization of persons over 60 years of age at the San Francisco General Hospital for whom sexual problems were, at least in part, associated with their hospitalization. In conjunction with a long-range research program in geriatric psychiatry, extensive data were collected during 1959 on all admissions of persons 60 years of age or older to the psychiatric wards of the San Francisco General Hospital. Within this group (N = 534), 24 patients (I5 males and 9 females) were identified as having problems related to sexual behavior involved in their admission. With few exceptions, the sexual problem appeared to be a function of the patient’s confusion associated with a chronic or acute brain syndrome. ,4n cxample is a 77-year-old man who, while confused, undressed in a restaurant. With only four exceptions, the incidents of sexual behavior noted for these patients occurred in their residences. Examples arc a 73-year-old woman who walked about “semi-exposed” in her apartment house, and a 71-year-old man whose pajamas frequently were unbuttoned. For about half of these persons, the problem was that they refused to wear clothes while at home. Other examples in which the patients’ families were disturbed include the wife of a 77-year-old man who complained he was “too sesy;” the daughter-in-law of a 74-year-old man who complained that he occasionally pinched her posterior and “approached her ardently? the daughter of a TS-year-old man who complained that her father had made advances to both her daughter and herself; the family of an 87-year-old woman who complained that she looked in the mirror at herself, while nude, for hours; and 3 patients who were described as being preoccupied by sexual matters. In only one situation, that of a 75-
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year-old man who molested a 9-year-old girl and attempted intercourse with her, was the situation regarded as other than minor. In only one other instance outside the home was a child involved, when a 66-year-old very confused man kissed a 4-year-old girl. Thus, it is evident that hospitalization is not used as a substitute for arrest for sexual offenses of the aged, since with very few exceptions hospitalization of elderly patients where sexual problems are noted refer to behavior at home that is annoying or embarrassing to the family and presents a problem in home care, but can scarcely be considered as dangerous or as a “sexual offense.” In summary, were it not for drunkenness, very few older people (60 years of age or over) would be arrested in San Francisco. If this is true nationally, and the Uniform Crime Reports appear to indicate that it is, it certainly merits further consideration. Among theories one might suggest is that antisocial behavior subsides with age in the sense that issues and problems that produce anxiety are less common as one grows older, or perhaps visible antisocial behavior subsides with age in the same way as does narcotics addiction. Other possibilities are that as people get older they may learn how to stay out of trouble or that some of the motives for criminal behavior may have diminished in strength. REFERENCES 1. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census: U.S. Census of Population, 1960, Final Report PC( l )-6B, General Population Characteristics, Cahfomia. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office. 2. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 1967. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office.
3. San Francisco Police Department, Bureau of Criminal Information: Monthly Statistical Reports, 1967. 4. Moberg, D. 0.: Old age and crime. J. Crim. Law 43:764-776, 1953. 5. Sutherland, E. H.: Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia, EPPincott, 1934. 6. Bittner, E.: The police on skid-row: A study of peace keeping Amer. Social. Rev., 32:699-715, 1967.