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Beyond Guardianship
In most states, a single cursory assessment of cognitive capacity — conducted once, by a stranger — is all it takes for a court to permanently strip a citizen of the right to manage their finances, choose their residence, make their own medical decisions, and vote.
Behind that threshold lies a multi-billion-dollar marketplace in which the person under guardianship is legally imprisoned by the very service meant to protect them. Older Americans hold nearly half the nation's household wealth. The financial stakes could not be higher. The oversight could not be thinner.
Beyond Guardianship is an independent publication advancing the reform and obsolescence of adult guardianship — and confronting the question the elder justice field has been too long reluctant to ask: not how to administer guardianship more humanely, but how to build the conditions under which it is no longer needed.
If guardianship has touched your family, start with Why Guardianship Matters — to understand how the system works, where it fails, and why reform is urgent.
For the promise the law and life have not yet kept — start with Supported Independence.
Diminishment is normalized long before the law arrives. To understand where it begins — and what can change it — start with Ageism and Aging.
The abuse begins long before the courtroom. To understand where — and what can stop it — go to The Guardianship Pipeline.
To understand how guardianship abuse and exploitation operates, scales, and survives, go to The Mechanism.
For legal frameworks, alternatives, and the case for constitutional reform — start with Rights, Law & Reform.
Elder justice has made real progress. This section asks whether it is enough — start with The Reckoning.
The stories that broke this open — and the reporters who told them. Start with Investigative Journalism.
Philip C. Marshall is the founder of Beyond Brooke (beyondbrooke.org), an elder justice advocacy initiative, and Professor Emeritus at Roger Williams University. He petitioned a New York court in 2006 to place his grandmother, Brooke Astor, under guardianship. He is now advocating for the reform and obsolescence of the system he used.
Image: Hiawatha National Forest, MI
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