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 White Plains, NY - Westchester County has announced the kickoff of Senior Crime Busters, a proactive elder fraud and crime prevention program that provides tips to seniors on how to stay safe and avoid financial exploitation and other scams.
The new outreach effort brings officials from law enforcement, social service agencies and non-profit organizations in Westchester together for the first time to pool their resources and expertise when speaking to senior groups.
In a typical program, seniors will learn about the most common scams, tell-tale techniques perpetrators use and who to alert if they identify a scam or are victimized. They will also learn how to protect their physical safety in situations such as shopping at the mall or walking in a neighborhood park.
Through such education, the county hopes seniors will learn how to avoid crimes before they occur.
The kickoff took place at the Judicial Institute at Pace Law School in White Plains, as part of a meeting of the county’s Department of Senior Programs and Services’ (DSPS) and its Aging Network. Network members work with the older population in many venues, such as through government agencies, nonprofit organizations and health-care facilities.
County Executive Andy Spano said the initiative underscores the county’s strong commitment to protecting its older residents, who are especially vulnerable to fraud. He noted that the New York State Attorney General reported that people 65 and older make up about 13 percent of the total U.S. population, but account for about 30 percent of its scam victims.
“But in Westchester, people 60 and older represent 20 percent of the population, or one in five residents, so the number of seniors victimized by scams could be even higher here,” Spano said. “That gives added urgency to the need for our Senior Crime Busters program, and is why we are acting now. Smart seniors are safe seniors.”
Gary Brown, director of the county’s Department of Consumer Protection, said con artists often see older people as easy targets for scams such as identity theft, telemarketing fraud, sweepstakes fraud and home improvement rip-offs.
“And with so many seniors now using the Internet, online scams are also a concern,” Brown said.
Brown also said that Senior Crime Busters’ team approach enables the county to have more speakers to present more programs to seniors than in the past.
Senior Crime Busters is a project of the Westchester Elder Abuse Coalition of the Department of Senior Programs and Services, and includes the Departments of Consumer Protection, Social Services (DSS) and Public Safety, the Office for Women, the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, the New York State Attorney General’s Office and the Pace Women’s Justice Center.
Speakers for the Senior Crime Busters presentation will come from those entities. They will go into the community in teams of two to present one-hour programs. One speaker will talk about consumer and financial issues; the other, public safety issues.
District Attorney Janet DiFiore noted that her office is proud to be a partner in Westchester County’s Senior Crime Busters program, “joining with other agencies to promote safety and educate our seniors so they won’t be taken advantage of."
“This collaborative effort brings together a number of agencies which all share one common goal: keeping Westchester’s seniors safe and secure,” said Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Belfiore. ”This forum will focus on providing seniors with basic tools to minimize the chance that they will fall victim to physical or financial harm.”
In addition to Spano, Brown and Belfiore speakers at the kickoff were Mae Carpenter, DSPS commissioner; Audrey Stone, Chief, Special Prosecutions Division, District Attorney’s Office; Natalie Siler, manager of DSS’ adult protective services and Risa S. Sugarman, assistant deputy attorney general for regional affairs.
Carpenter said Senior Crime Busters is an important part of DSPS’ Livable Community Connection (LCC) program, which is a network of nine sites throughout Westchester. Each site is headed by a coordinator who works with an advisory council and local task forces to develop senior friendly communities.
Carpenter said the Senior Crime Busters program is essential to creating such communities because it fills the basic human need for safety – the most important need people have after food and shelter.
“Safety is a critical component of livable communities,” Carpenter said. “Residents must be able to feel safe in their homes and communities. If that need is not met, people cannot move on and move up to make higher contributions to society.”
The kickoff will also include a video the county made, which has two scenarios of dangerous situations seniors might encounter. One scenario involves a “bank representative” who calls an elderly man and says he is investigating unauthorized charges on the man’s credit card and needs the security code on the back of the card.
The other involves a man who knocks on an older woman’s door and asks to use the telephone. He says his car broke down across the street and his cell phone isn’t working, and assures her the call won’t take “more than a minute.” While using the phone, he steals a wallet.
The first part of each scenario shows what the seniors did wrong before they took part in a Senior Crime Busters program . The second part shows how the seniors were able to correctly handle each situation because of what they learned.
Senior Crime Busters is being marketed to leaders of senior clubs, nutrition centers, houses of worship, libraries and the LCC site coordinators. Already, programs are scheduled for July 10 at the New Rochelle Office for the Aging and for July 23 at the White Plains Senior Center
Letters describing the program and asking for sign-ups will be mailed to the senior leaders later this summer, For more information or to arrange for a program call (914) 995-2190. The initiative will resume scheduling programs in September.
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