Shedding light on the hidden crisis of older adult homicide in Australia
Homicide against older Australian adults – aged 65 years and over – is a unique and concerning public health issue. Improving our understanding of it can help improve safety for older adults living in the community.
We recently published findings from 15 years of coronial data on homicide that provides some practical ways forward to increase safety from violence for older adults.
Factors unique to older adult homicide
Our meta-analysis in 2021 reported a pooled (from multiple sources) older adult homicide rate of 2.02 per 100,000 people. Although this rate is lower than for those aged 18 to 64 years (at 3.98 per 100,000), official Australian victims of crime statistics show a recent increase to 1.3 per 100,000 population for 2023, up from 0.9 in the previous year.
This is the highest observed rate since 2016.
Globally, the number of adults aged 65 years and over is expected to double from 2019 to 2050, indicating the potential for older adult homicide to increase.
Homicide against older adults in Victoria
Building on our earlier review, reported here in Lens, we’ve now carried out a retrospective analysis of all homicides reported to the coroner in Victoria between 2001 and 2015.
The protocol for this study was published in 2021, and comprehensively reviewed potential risk factors from older adult homicide, elder abuse, family, and family violence homicide research.
The new study was carried out in two parts, both published in peer-reviewed academic journals – one a detailed overview of older adult homicide victimisation, the other an in-depth analysis of family homicides where the offender was an intimate partner or other relative of the deceased older adult.
Results document the deceased-offender relationship, and explicit detail on the physical, mental health and service contact history for both the deceased and offender.
Older adult homicide victimisation
The first part of the research described 59 individual older adult homicide events. The findings show most victims were aged between 65 and 74, the offender was most commonly a family member (more than 60%), and the incident most often occurred at home.
We found that victims frequently recorded physical illness, and the primary differences between victim-offender relationship types were that more intimate and familial homicides occurred at home, with blunt or bodily force, while acquaintance and stranger offenders more often had a history of criminal offending.
The second part of the research explored 37 older adult homicides committed by a family member.
Read more: Safe at home? We need a new strategy to protect older adults from violent crime
We distinguished two types of older adult family homicide – intimate partner and parent-child. Intergenerational (that is, parent-child) relationships were the most common older adult family homicide type, followed by intimate partner homicide (27%).
Of these 37 family homicides, there were 15 family violence homicides. Of particular interest, older adults had previously been a perpetrator of family violence against their offender, almost as often as they had been victims.
Our research provides a vital benchmark for future analysis post-pandemic and post-family violence reform.
The detailed description of older adult homicides in Victoria reveals high mental health and substance misuse among offenders, existing family violence prior to the incident, and recent healthcare or social service contacts by victims.
Older women are especially vulnerable, and incidents involving multiple fatalities require further exploration beyond intimate partner homicide-suicide.
A need for more recognition
We recommend that older adult homicide is distinctly recognised in policy and service responses.
It should be treated with equivalent importance to intimate partner or child homicide, and considered more seriously by doctors when issuing death certificates, particularly considering the invisibility of cases of neglect. More attention to ageism and associated assumptions would help to address this cause.
The key features of older adult homicides we’ve studied should be communicated to relevant agencies to improve the identification of, and response to, victims and offenders.
Prior to death, older adults can experience physical illness and have often been in recent contact with doctors or social services. Older adult family homicides are often committed against parents by adult children with diagnosed mental health, drug and alcohol abuse history, and historical exposure to violence.
Researchers and relevant bodies should try to improve identification and promote support-seeking of older adults in the health and social service settings.
Additionally, parties involved in the collection of death investigation data should review protocols to ensure information identifying diversity in the individual is captured. This would include ethnicity, including Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identity, gender and sexual identity, physical disability and religious affiliation.
Specific training of those who collect and record the data could ensure that prejudices (such as sexism, ageism and racism), and assumptions regarding these, are minimised.
Moving forward, more work to understand the effectiveness of interventions is also needed.
Screening tools are valuable when valid and used in the appropriate settings by trained professionals. In addition, support for older adults in their relationships, through processes such as mediation and adult safeguarding (that is, the legal protection of at-risk adults from abuse) are promising, yet require greater evidence for effectiveness.
For the offenders, addressing stressors relating to management of mental health, appropriate trauma recovery, and alcohol and drug rehabilitation is needed – once those at risk of causing harm are first identified.
