[The elderly as victims of intrafamilial violence--results of a criminologic dark field study]

After a brief discussion of methodological and conceptional problems characterizing the present state of research on abuse of the elderly, results of a representative German victimization survey (n = 5711) are presented. Results show that although victimization risks generally decrease by age, intrafamily violence against elderly is more prevalent than conventional violent street crimes. Since the age-related decrease of victimization risks is more pronounced for violent victimization outside the family, the relative importance of the family-setting for violent victimization increases, i.e., most violent crimes against elderly people are committed by family and household members. Furthermore, the analysis of measures of depression and well-being reveals that intrafamily violence is at least as stressing as extrafamily violence. Based on the 1-year prevalence rate for 1991 computed for the sample under study, a conservative estimate yields a minimum victimization rate of 3.1%. Taking into account the total population of the respective age group, this leads to the estimation that every year about 340 000 people aged 60 to 75 are victims of violent acts by family and household members.