This was a commissioned book to Professor Richard Douglass by AARP. The mission was to write a comprehensive, yet not frightening, overview of domestic mistreatment (abuse and neglect) of the elderly. Douglass was chosen to write the book because he was principal investigator in the first field study of abuse and neglect of the elderly (1980) and was central to the development of this line of social research, world-wide. This book has become required reading in many medical schools, nursing schools, social work schools and departments, and throughout the aging networks in the US.