Last year, Adult Protective Services received roughly 25,000 reports of elderly abuse or neglect that required investigation. This number is said to be extremely conservative though, as experts say less than one-third of cases are actually reported.
To help reduce the number of Michigan Nursing Home Abuse cases, the state recently enacted several laws aimed at deterring individuals from committing such acts. An article published by The Macomb Daily stated that legislators adopted 15 of these policies since May 2012. Some of these changes including increasing the penalties for offenses and also allowing consecutive sentencing in cases involving elderly abuse.
This means judges are able to stack sentences on top of one another for those convicted of multiple crimes of abuse or neglect, which allows for longer prison sentences to be handed down.
Local and state officials are also working to increase education about the problem of elder abuse and neglect by holding summits where the issue is discussed in detail. Both the “No Excuse for Elder Abuse” campaign and the Michigan Elder Justice and At-Risk Adults Project held events earlier this month.
The Michigan Personal Injury Lawyers with Michigan Injury Lawyers are hopeful the attention the topic of elder abuse is receiving will work to reduce the number of incidents that occur each year.