Bill targets crimes against seniors

State Assembly introducing stiffer penalities

By: Al Wicklund
MONROE — State Assembly members Gary Guear and Linda Greenstein reviewed proposed legislation, including two of their bills to increase penalties for crimes against senior citizens and the disabled, to a group of senior citizens Jan. 5.
   Talking to a predominantly senior audience in the main meeting room of the Monroe Township municipal building, Mr. Guear, a former detective with the Trenton Police Department, warned of identity theft, a crime that often victimizes the elderly.
   He said losses by theft of an identity reported to police nationwide last year amounted to $343 million. He said that was just from the incidents reported; many people are too embarrassed to report that they are victims of crimes.
   He recommended not giving personal information to strangers, particularly over the telephone to people claiming to be verifying information about you and to beware of dumpster divers.
   "Dumpster divers are people who go through garbage looking for discarded credit-card statements. They can get information from those statements — such as card numbers, a name and an address — that will put them in business and the victim in debt," Mr. Guear said.
   Ms. Greenstein said the Crimes Against Seniors bill (A-1735) creates the separate crime of victimization of a senior citizen or of a person with a disability with added penalties.
   The Assembly members touched on other bills, including:
   • the Assisted Living Task Force, to be established to study current public funding initiatives and recommend the best solutions and alternatives to improve them;
   • the Nursing Home Patient Protection Act designed to facilitate improved care for seniors in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities;
   • a bill (A-3152) aimed at increasing state oversight of nursing homes;
   • and the Kinship Legal Guardianship Notification Act, geared to require DYFS to notify kinship guardians about benefits.