PORTLAND – Elder abuse is a crime that often goes unreported, one that family members sometimes try to sweep under the rug.

“You don’t air your laundry to the community. You keep things close and quiet,” Debbie DeDominicus, deputy director of the Southern Maine Agency on Aging, explained. “An older person is often unwilling to prosecute. They’re embarrassed. It’s their grandson, their son.”

In hopes of shedding light on what has become a growing problem in Maine and across the nation, advocates for the elderly are launching a three-year, federally funded initiative to provide education on elder abuse to 200 law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges.

The goal of the Elder Justice Training Partnership is to improve investigations and the court process for elderly victims. Volunteers of America Northern New England received a $450,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct the training.

“We’re looking at system change and education rather than personnel and equipment,” said Patty Kimball, the agency’s Weed and Seed program director, who wrote the grant.

Maine, with one of the oldest populations in the country, has an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 cases of ongoing elder abuse, according to state officials. The most common form of abuse involves caretakers, children or other relatives who take money from their victims, many of whom do not report their losses.

Isolation, frailty and fear of retribution can keep victims from reaching out for help. But experts say there are valuable investigative techniques that can be used to root out elder abuse.

Interviewing elderly people alone and out of view and earshot of others who might intimidate them often yields important information, said Ricker Hamilton, an adult protective services manager for the Department of Human Services.

“They’re very fearful of what’s going to happen,” Hamilton said. “You don’t want to set them up for more abuse when they leave.”

The training program also will seek to make prosecutors and judges more sensitive to the needs of elderly people who wind up in the court system.

“We need to develop a way so they’re not traumatized by the process, but they get their day in court very quickly,” Hamilton said.

Kennebec County District Attorney Evert Fowle, who heads the Maine Prosecutors Association, said some of his staff will participate in the training effort.

He hopes that with education and vigorous enforcement, elderly abuse will be identified sooner, reducing its occurrence and the suffering it creates.

“With baby boomers aging, this is a crime we’re going to be seeing in the future,” Fowle said.