New Fraud Training for Georgia's Police Officers

Beginning this year, new police officers in Georgia are required to take a course as part of their basic training to help them identify fraud, abuse and neglect of older adults and people with disabilities.

That comes as the General Assembly recently passed a bill that would require public safety officials to create a training course for officers responding to calls involving people with dementia who may be at risk of financial fraud, neglect or other crimes. (As of press time, the governor was reviewing the legislation.)

Both initiatives represent a stepped-up effort by law enforcement, advocates, government agencies and lawmakers to protect the growing number of older Georgians. They also reflect a new-found sense of cooperation among those varied stakeholders, who have often worked independently of each other.

“[Before] it was almost like everyone was in silos,” says Wallace White, AARP Georgia’s associate state director for advocacy and rural outreach. “It truly is a night-and-day difference.”

More than 1 in 5 Georgia residents will be 60 or older by 2030, a jump of almost 34 percent from 2012. And they can be particularly vulnerable to ever more sophisticated predators trying to siphon away their savings through tech support scams, fake lotteries and other crimes.

Georgia consumers age 60 and over reported losing more than $92 million to fraud in 2023, according to the FBI’s most recent data. That’s up from $33.5 million in 2021.

“Our aging and elderly [communities] are obviously at risk,” especially people living alone, says Kevin Angell, who manages the state’s police academy training center in Savannah. “It’s important ... for their financial, mental well-being and physical well-being that officers—or anybody in public safety—can recognize when they’re in need,” he says.

A focus on elder abuse

Research shows that 1 out of 10 older adults in this country experience some form of abuse every year. In Georgia, elder abuse encompasses a wide range of crimes, including physical and sexual assault, neglect, emotional abuse and financial exploitation by strangers and loved ones alike.

More than a third of the 28,546 reports of abuse investigated by Georgia’s Division of Aging Services in fiscal year 2024 involved financial exploitation.

The aging division has a special forensics unit that consults and provides tools to law enforcement and prosecutors throughout the state on elder abuse cases. In 2021, the forensics team and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit officially formed the Crimes Against the Disabled and Elderly Task Force.

The task force offers a two-day training on elder abuse for law enforcement, as well as health aides, hospital social workers, hospice workers and other professionals who interact with older people. It covers a range of topics, including Georgia laws on elder abuse, techniques for interviewing older adults and elements for building a strong case for prosecutors.

The instructors delve into financial exploitation—not only on how to spot it but also on the trauma it can cause a victim.

“They have shame, they have guilt,” says Anna Thomas, who manages the state’s forensic unit and oversees the trainings.

Ryan Hilton, the assistant special agent in charge of the GBI’s exploitation and trafficking unit, took the class when he first started out as a patrol officer in Gilmer County in North Georgia. He says the skills he learned were invaluable in a rural county with many older residents.

Under the bill passed by the General Assembly this spring, the Georgia Public Safety Training Center would develop a course for law enforcement and other first responders on how to recognize symptoms of dementia and how to investigate possible exploitation and other offenses against people with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of cognitive decline.

“Individuals with cognitive decline are more vulnerable to abuse, neglect and exploitation,” says Nancy Pitra, government affairs director of the Georgia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. “And first responders are in a unique position to help direct individuals to resources and providers to stop future abuse.”

More than 188,000 Georgians 65 and older—about 12 percent of that age group—had Alzheimer’s disease in 2020, the association’s data shows.

There’s been some “great collaborative work” to improve law enforcement’s handling of elder abuse cases, Pitra says. The new measure can build on that by giving law enforcement the techniques to help people with dementia.

Ann Hardie spent a decade covering aging issues for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has written for the Bulletin for 16 years.

Also of interest:

• Why Scammers Target Older Adults
• What is Dementia?
• AARP Joins National Effort to Spot and Stop Scams