Law: Old Enough to Know Better

A stunning rise in crime by senior citizens creates a quandary

The pair of gray-haired men looked like any of the other retirees at a Publix Super Market in Hollywood, Fla. But when they reached the cashier, one abruptly pulled out a gun and demanded money. Loot in hand, the two fled from the store, jumped into a get away car, and were whisked away by another aging driver. The trio has played out that scene five times this year, knocking off Wells Fargo armored cars as well as supermarkets and a bank. They are still at large.

Such incidents recall the 1979 movie of wrinkled wrongdoers, Going in Style, with George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg. But they point to an ominous trend. During the 1970s, when the number of Americans 55 or older increased by 22%, major-felony arrests for that group went up 148%. From 1964 to 1979, arrests for murder by the elderly rose 200%; arrests for rape and larceny each increased by more than 300%.

Of all geratic crimes, none is now more prevalent than shoplifting. “It is reaching epidemic proportions,” says Donald Newman, dean of the School of Criminal Justice of the State University of New York at Albany. “Ask any criminal court judge whom he sees across the bench at the end of the month before Social Security checks arrive.”

Some explanations for this golden-age crime seem as wizened as the malefactors. One theory holds that sex offenses by the elderly are the result of both regressive behavior and longer health. Another says that violent assaults may spring from explosive family tensions. “Overage criminals feel they are no longer bound to a system that has no place for them,” concludes Criminologist Gary Feinberg of Biscayne College in Miami. “They are adrift, and society has provided them with neither map nor itinerary nor friendly shore.”

Nonsense, counters Sidney Glugover, who counsels elderly shoplifters in Florida’s Broward County: “Feinberg and the other social scientists like to invent poetic theories about alienated subcultures. Economics is at the root of the crime. If you want a theory for what they’re doing, you can call it ‘dollar stretch.'”

One fact is beyond dispute: the law-enforcement system is not designed to deal with the elderly. As Newman observes, “There is really no room in the system for the 67-year-old woman caught stealing a can of tuna fish. A three-year sentence may be life for an elderly offender.”

Moreover, because prisons are generally not equipped to deal with the special physical problems and medical needs of the elderly, imprisonment may be impractical if not cruel.

Donald Pappa, a municipal court judge in Asbury Park, N.J., speaking for many of his colleagues, says, “When these people come before me, I feel as if I’m standing in judgment over my own parents.” Even retailers, victims of most geratic crime, worry about sunset-years justice. Says Linda Williams of the National Coalition to Prevent Shoplifting: “The people we represent are in a quandary over what to do. The best way to deal with elderly offenders may be through diversion programs, and not in the courts.”

One model approach is Glugover’s program for rehabilitating first-time shoplifters. If they agree to take twelve weeks of counseling, the offenders can avoid conventional punishment. One of Glugover’s goals is to keep his clients involved in constructive community activity, like clerical work in Broward County offices. He stresses the value of ongoing therapy: “They don’t consider it a crime until they’re arrested. Then the real world comes crashing down on them. When you’re 65 or 70 and are arrested for shoplifting, you want to take the gas pipe.” His results are encouraging: of the 1,200 people who have enrolled over the four-year life of the program, less than 2% have been arrested again. Such counseling is still rare, however; meanwhile, the nation’s population continues to grow older. It is no wonder that criminologists get gray.