Crimes Against Older People is Everyone’s Business

While the country continues to grapple with a rise in crime, these recent murders highlight that crime and violence impacts every person. Executive Director of the Council of Ageing, Ix-chel Poot told News Five today that there has to a collective responsibility to keep our older population safe.

Ix-chel Poot

Ix-chel Poot, Executive Director, Council of Ageing

“See something, say something; if you can, do something. Very often, older people who are more active don’t necessarily keep in contact with their neighbours. You know you see them come and go, come and go, but we need to re-establish a lot of those community relationships so that older persons don’t seem to be on their own because that creates a sense of vulnerability. So if we are able to build around a greater sense of community. That goes beyond the police; that goes with neighbours being more neighbourly; that goes with church groups being more active in visiting; that goes in supporting the work of older person’s organizations that may be doing visitation, volunteering your time and those are ways that we can increase the sense of security. When it comes to the discussion on policy, what we really need – and it is something that we have been talking about a lot and we really need to pus and advocate for it – is really look at a life course approach to when we draft policies, when we put in place measures to protect our society. And we have to remember that it is not just about protecting children. Children become youths, youths become adolescents, adolescents become adults and adults become older persons. So how do we ensure that the privileges, the rights, the protections that the child who is experiencing them at seven that at seventy that same individual will have those same rights, those same services, that same access? And that comes from looking at all our policies, whatever we are developing and considering the entire life course of our populace.”