Are older Australians really safer from crime? The evidence says the harms are just harder to see

SolStock/Getty Australians are once again mourning after the alleged murders of three women in New South Wales over the weekend.

With two of the victims being 70 and 90 years old, questions are being asked about the safety of older people.

Research has long established that older people are less likely to be victims of crime than younger people, with two notable exceptions: fraud, and abuse by people known to them .

But why are older Australians so vulnerable to certain types of crime, have rates changed over time, and what can we do about it? Which crimes most affect older people? Australia has been experiencing a declining overall crime rate for decades.

But one of the most vulnerable populations is often overlooked: older people.

We might think the majority of crime experienced by elderly people would be financial scams.

However, evidence shows they are victimised at similar rates as other age groups , despite losing more money .

Adults 65 and over account for about 26.5% of losses reported to Scamwatch , while only accounting for about 17% of the population.

The largest single source of data on the abuse of older Australians is the National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study , run by the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

In the past year, it found 14.8% of people aged 65+ had experienced abuse .

Types of abuse varied.

This proportion of people aged 65+ who experienced abuse was made up of those who had experienced psychological abuse (11.7%), neglect (2.9%), financial abuse (2.1%), physical abuse (1.8%) and sexual abuse (1.0%).

For all abuse types, around half the perpetrators were family members, but this increased to 64% for financial abuse.

This adds another layer of complexity when it comes to reporting.