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News on Elder Care
Sex Offenders, Dangerous Residents in Nursing Homes
to Get Closer Study
Grant awarded to
study dangerous residents in long term care
May 31 – Following a report by the Government
Accountability Office in March that found "about 700 registered sex
offenders" living in nursing homes or intermediate care facilities for
people with mental retardation (ICF-MR) during 2005, a researcher has
received a grant to study the presence of potentially violent and
dangerous residents, including sexual predators, living in the nation’s
nursing homes.
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Donna Cohen, professor and researcher at the
University of South Florida’s Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health
Institute, has received the grant from AARP.
“Too little is known about potentially dangerous
residents in long term care facilities,” said Cohen, an internationally
known expert on dangerous and violent behaviors in the elderly,
including murder-suicide. “Registered as well as unregistered sex
offenders and persons with criminal records are entering long term care,
putting at risk some of our most vulnerable citizens.”
The study contract comes on the heels of a study by
the GAO released in March 2006 that identified sex offenders by using the
FBI's National Sex Offender Registry (NSOR), which is a compilation of
sex offender registries submitted by all states.
Most identified sex offenders were male, under age
65, and living in nursing homes, and represented 0.05 percent of the 1.5
million residents of nursing homes and ICFs-MR.
About 3 percent of nursing homes and 0.7 percent of
ICFs-MR housed at least 1 identified sex offender during 2005.
However,
these estimates, the GOA reported, are understated due to data
limitations.
In addition, the report found that long term care
facility administrators also worried about potential violence from
residents who were mentally ill or cognitively impaired.
“There is an urgent need for research on the
prevalence, risk factors and patterns of violence as well as the
characteristics of perpetrators,” explained Cohen, who has served on
many national scientific and technical advisory boards and often
testifies before Congress on issues involving elders and violence. “Long
term care administrators not only need to develop ways to identify
potentially violent or predatory residents, but also need to develop
policies and procedures for dealing with them.”
Cohen pointed to data gathered by the organization
A Perfect Cause (http://www.APerfectCause.org),
published in 2005, that found the number of registered sex offenders
living in the nation’s nursing homes had more than doubled between 2004
and 2005. These data triggered Congressional hearings in Washington that
lead to the request for a GAO investigation.
Cohen noted that the GAO study found that long term
care facilities do not routinely impose different supervision or
separation requirements on residents who are known offenders or who have
prior convictions. Often, prior convictions are not known. Moreover,
only four states have laws that specify that long term care facilities
must be notified when registered sex offenders become residents. In May
2006, Illinois became the first state to require criminal background
checks on all current and incoming nursing home residents.
“Our nearly three million elders living in nursing
homes and assisted living facilities are among our most vulnerable
citizens,” concluded Cohen. “It is our hope that this study will not
only emphasize the urgent need for awareness of the issue but will also
encourage states and care facility administrators to engage their
resources to protect the vulnerable.”
The University of South Florida is one of the
nation’s top 63 public research universities as designated by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. USF received more
than $287 million in research contracts and grants last year, and it is
ranked by the National Science Foundation as one of the nation’s fastest
growing universities in terms of federal research and development
expenditures. The university has a $1.3 billion annual budget and serves
nearly 43,250 students on campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg,
Sarasota/Manatee and Lakeland. In 2005, USF entered the Big East
athletic conference.
>> To read the
complete GOA study - Long-Term Care Facilities: Information on Residents
Who Are Registered Sex Offenders or Are Paroled for Other Crimes (pdf) –
Click Here.
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