(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) Elder and dependent adults may be subjected to abuse, neglect, or abandonment, and that this state has a responsibility to protect those persons.
(2) Most elder and dependent adults who are at greatest risk of abuse, neglect, or abandonment by their families or caretakers, suffer physical impairments and other poor health that place them in a dependent and vulnerable position.
(3) A significant number of these persons have developmental disabilities and that mental and verbal limitations often leave them vulnerable to abuse and incapable of asking for help and protection.
(4) In cases of severe elder and dependent adult abuse or neglect, endangered adults are often placed in situations that pose an immediate risk of serious injury or death.
(5) In cases of severe elder and dependent adult abuse or neglect, endangered adults are frequently deprived of their personal autonomy and dignity by their abusers, thus preventing them from acting on their own needs or desires to free themselves from serious, and even life-threatening, abuse or neglect.
(6) Due to limited resources, court delays, and limitations of existing law, authorities are often unable to intervene in time to prevent victims of abuse and neglect from being seriously injured or killed.
(7) These limitations have left endangered adults, or elder and dependent adults subject to avoidable pain, suffering, and death, and has resulted in the expenditure of public funds of the treatment of major injuries and health conditions that could have been avoided with proper and timely intervention.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature, in enacting this chapter, to enhance the protection of elderly persons and dependent adults by providing a mechanism for temporary emergency protective custody of elderly or dependent adults who are suspected victims of abuse or neglect, and who are found to be in a situation that poses an immediate risk of serious injury or death, and when no other means are available to mitigate the risk to the elderly or dependent adult.
(Added by Stats. 1996, Ch. 913, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 1997.)
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