No, you're not mistaken. I certainly appreciate the importance of the criminal framework for prosecuting in circumstances where there has been a crime. I'm not convinced that this is always the response the older person wants when she has been victimized--often because the person who's harming her is a very close person in her family. She may not want her son to go to jail. She may not want people in the neighbourhood to know that her son has hurt her. She may simply want community support for her family to help negotiate a healthy way out of this really bad dynamic that's resulting in harm to her.
On October 25th, 2011. See this statement in context.