By Rick McCann
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News
June 10, 2025
BALDWIN COUNTY Ala. Every year, approximately 960,000 Americans are arrested for a wide array of offenses ranging from theft to murder and just about everything in between.
For more than ten years, two sub-categories of these arrestees, juveniles and senior citizens, have not only caught the attention of law enforcement but also that of criminologists, clinicians, mental health professionals and counselors from various fields.
Most Americans, even many who currently find themselves among the almost one million arrested annually, have never had negative contact with law enforcement and many others have never even received a traffic ticket.
While we know that a percentage of the increase in youths breaking the law is coming from the fact that there has been a large break-down in family dynamics, including single parent homes, an increase in youths using alcohol and drugs and many who have little to no guidance or authority figure around, seniors is a whole different story.
While it’s true that it can be argued in some situations that some senior citizens are only committing crimes such as shoplifting, petty thefts and other minor crimes out of survival due to a lack of funds, living only on social security checks, or having no other financial resources etc., the truth is that many retirees are committing many serious and violent crimes and operating outside of their norm.
The precise number of senior citizens arrested each year in the U.S. varies, but available data indicates the following:
Rising Trend: The proportion of older adults in the criminal justice system is increasing.
Arrest Share: In 2021, those aged 55 and older made up 8% of all adult arrests, up from 3% in 2000.
In 2021, 1 in 10 jail bookings involved individuals aged 55 or older.
Between 2000 and 2020, arrests of those 65 and older increased by nearly 30%.
Many older adults admitted to jail are arrested for low-level, non-violent offenses such as trespassing, driving offenses, and disorderly conduct but senior citizens are also often charged with crimes involving fraud, identity theft, sex offenses, robberies and homicides.
During court trials, some senior citizens have commented that they had a boring life and had never been in trouble with the law and just wanted to see how it felt to do something that they knew was wrong and that could get them in trouble.
Researchers say that there are many factors of why older adults who have never been arrested before crossed the lines and suddenly began to break the law, but they are as varied as the crimes themselves.
During the past week, police have arrested three senior citizens who are accused of bank robberies in three different states and in Mobile, police officers were forced to shoot and kill a 75-year-old man who pointed a gun at them.
Police were investigating a complaint that Michael Collins had pointed a gun at another person during a dispute and when officers tried to speak with, he then pointed a gun at the officers and refused to drop it.
And sadly, there is a growing trend of senior citizens committing “mercy killings” of their spouses who suffer from a failing health, or a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, cancer, or other life ending diseases.
Two such mercy killings have taken place at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope.
One such incident occurred in August of 2004 when a 79-year-old woman recovering from hip surgery was shot and killed Wednesday at the hospital in what a spokeswoman described as a “mercy killing” by her 80-year-old husband, who critically wounded himself.
According to FBI statistics, there are hundreds of “mercy killings” each year in the United States.
While active euthanasia is illegal throughout the US, assisted suicide is legal in certain states, such as California, Oregon, Hawaii, New Mexico, Washington, Vermont, Maine, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. The number of assisted suicides in California in 2021 was 486. A 2016 review of Washington state and Oregon found that less than 1% of doctors wrote prescriptions for assisted suicide each year.
Generally violent crime rates overall tend to decrease with age, but there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that violence can increase among older adults, particularly in specific contexts. Several factors contribute to this, including mental health issues like dementia and depression, social isolation, and economic needs. Additionally, certain types of violence, such as elder abuse and intimate partner violence, can be more prevalent among older adults.
Senior citizens have repeatedly been arrested for killing their spouses during domestic violence incidents, attacking medical personnel in healthcare or assist living facilities, or committing other violent crimes while sometimes on strong medications or suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Senior Citizens who are convicted of these crimes often find themselves in a cold jail cell with much younger offenders who often take advantage of the older prisoners.
Nationwide as crime, especially violent and gun- related crimes continue to rise, senior citizens, who up until 2000 only made up a very small percentage of those arrested for felonies, are fast becoming the new face of what a criminal looks like and there’s no data based information to specifically key in on these changes or how to reverse this trend.
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