An Epidemic of Violence: A Collective Challenge
By Daniel D. Sorensen
Crime against people with developmental disabilities has reached epidemic proportions. Although it is similar to elder abuse, child abuse, and domestic violence, it remains largely invisible and unaddressed. Studies consistently show that violent crime against people with disabilities occurs at a level that is five to ten times higher than violent crime against the general public. Dick Sobsey (1996) Estimates are that crimes committed against people with developmental disabilities exceed crimes involved in elder abuse, child abuse and domestic violence by a wide margin. Joan Petersillia (1998)
People with developmental disabilities are particularly vulnerable to sexual assaults. Studies show that 80% to 83% of women and 32% to 54% of men with developmental disabilities have been sexually assaulted. Hard (1986); Stromsness (1993) More disturbing is the number of people with developmental disabilities who are assaulted more than once. One study found that 80% of people with developmental disabilities who had been sexually assaulted were sexually assaulted more than once. More alarming, 50% reported being sexually assaulted 10 or more times. Sobsey and Doe (1991)
Children with developmental disabilities are victims of abuse and violence at a higher rate than the high rate against children without disabilities. One study
found that children with mental retardation suffered a rate of neglect 3.7
times; physical abuse 3.8 times; emotional abuse 3.8 times; and sexual abuse 4
times higher than children without disabilities. Sullivan and Knutson,
(1997)
Little Help for These Victims
These and other studies also show that crimes against people with developmental disabilities crimes are reported at a much lower rate that crimes against the general public. In addition to lower reporting rates, crimes against people with developmental disabilities are prosecuted at a lower rate than the general public. When the crimes are prosecuted, there are few convictions.
One of the most unfortunate, yet common things I hear from crime victims with developmental disabilities is “why bother to report a crime, nothing is ever done about it.” They believe that both the developmental disabilities service system (“service system’) and the criminal justice system will not help them when they are the victims of crime. Their perception is confirmed by the lower prosecution and conviction rates.
Most of my colleagues across the country who are working on this problem report that the greatest reluctance to address this issue comes from the various disability service systems. Leaders in the field of developmental disabilities must now take on the task of moving their organizations towards more adequately addressing this problem. This will not be easily accomplished, because we face a number of barriers.
Education
Ignorance is the most significant barrier to addressing this problem. Until eight years ago, I was unaware of the very high rate of violent crime against people with developmental disabilities. I have been a parent and civil rights activist for more than 30 years and a professional advocate for eight years. Even though I read and attended endless meetings, I still did not have a clue about the scope of this problem. Nor did my colleagues. Overcoming our lack of knowledge about this problem will take patience, perseverance, and a substantial investment of resources. Yet our involvement is critical if we want to reduce the high rate of crime and violence against people with developmental disabilities.
Many people still express skepticism when confronted with the scope of the problem. After all, if this
were true “we”, the advocates and professionals in the service system, would surely know about it.
We must therefore make sure that we are consistently exposed to the research that is being done on
this problem. Only then will we realize that we have overlooked the plight of society’s most
vulnerable crime victims.
The second barrier, inertia, is a powerful force in both large and small organizations. We have all
experienced how difficult it for an organization to change priorities or take on new initiatives. As
leaders, we must meet this problem head on by persisting until this inertia is overcome. We cannot
wait for “someone else” to initiate action. Each of us has a direct moral and professional
responsibility to prevent crime and violence against the people we serve.
The “full plate syndrome” is the third barrier. All of us in this field are often overwhelmed by not having enough time to do the many important things that we need to do. We have to triage, select the most important things, and put off other things in order to get anything done at all.
Getting an organization to take on an issue is usually a political process. The individuals who try to get an organization to take on the issue may have to struggle for a long time before it gets on an organization’s agenda. Once there, advocates must continue to fight to keep it a priority and to increase its attention and funding. Because most individuals and organizations already have full agendas, we often feel that there is simply no further room for a new issue without removing another issue. Advocates for these other issues will resist any such removal. Their loyalty to long fought issues tends to compromise an organization’s ability to triage issues. As a result, the issue of crime and violence against people with developmental disabilities is often left out in the cold. Organizations ignore it or say that while it is a worthy issue, they cannot deal with it because they are fully committed elsewhere.
We must change our thinking about crime against people with disabilities. Personal safety must be a priority. Personal safety of people with developmental disabilities is not a separate competing issue; it is an integral issue for all major services. If quality residential care is your priority, you must provide a safe living environment. The same is true of recreation, transportation, special education, day program, supported living, supported employment, or any other area of living.
We must become advocates for eliminating crime and violence against people with developmental disabilities and fight for this vigorously and persistently. If we don’t who will?
Another
barrier is the complexity of this issue. Some needed reforms are especially
difficult because they involve more than disability service system. These other
systems include child and adult protective services, the
police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and courts. An example of this is
illustrated in the way we investigate crimes. When a person who does not have
disabilities is sexually or physically assaulted, we classify the assault as a
“crime”. The police are called, the District Attorney prosecutes, and the
perpetrator is sent to prison or given other punishment. However, when a person
with disabilities is sexually or physically assaulted, we classify the assault
as “abuse”. Instead of a police investigation, the report is instead often
investigated by the care provider organization itself, a social service
organization, a licensing agency or some other administrative body. The result
is often an administrative remedy such as a citation, a fine, or the firing of
the alleged perpetrator.
This process trivializes crime against people with developmental disabilities and encourages perpetrators to target this population because they believe that there is little chance that they will be arrested, tried, or convicted. We must change this so that crime victims with developmental disabilities receive equal justice!
The
disincentive to report crime against people with developmental disabilities is a
significant barrier. Managers of residential and day programs often have a
conflict of interest in dealing with crime and violence against the people they
serve. There are few external rewards for reporting a crime in their facilities
or programs; but there are numerous are
disincentives such as licensing fines for a felony committed in a facility or
program. In California, a double AA violation may carry a $25,000 fine.
Administrators may receive a 10% bonus if they can go a year with no violations
or citations. A reported violent crime can lead to newspaper headlines,
editorial criticisms and television coverage that can damage the organization or
corporation that runs the facility to the degree that the administrator is fired
or the facility is shut down. Lawsuits may result or families may quickly
remove their loved ones. New placements may not be forthcoming. Administrators
have seen this happen often enough for some to be reluctant to report a violent
felony.
A University of Alberta study indirectly measures this disincentive. It found that 40% of those criminally abused and 40% of non-abusing staff of care facilities studied are reluctant to come forward with criminal abuse issues for fear of reprisals or retribution from administrators (Helm, 1990).
The powerful social pressure against reporting one’s fellow workers also works as a disincentive. Although not usually presented as a direct request to not report a known rape or assault, the pressure is couched in slippery rationalizations such as, “we don’t know that it really happened, you know that these people can’t be trusted to tell the truth, she probably came on to him and invented this charge when he rejected her, it was probably another client that did it, it’s not my job to report this crime as I have told my supervisor and he told me that he will handle it.”
In several states laws requiring workers in this field to report their reasonable suspicions are
largely ignored despite the threat of jail and fines. Reporting requirements are poorly understood
and seldom enforced. The reporting requirement pales in the face of the powerful social pressure
not to tell on one’s colleagues. We need to find ways to counteract these powerful disincentives.
When I began my work on crime and violence against people with developmental disabilities, I
found, perhaps, two dozen people in the U.S. and Canada who were working on this issue. Today
there are several hundred. Work on this issue is being done in Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,
Vermont, California, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and many other places.
One group that continues to address this problem is the California Victims of Crime Committee. Established in 1993, the Committee is a coalition of consumer advocacy groups, service providers, and state agencies and organizations representing various components of the criminal justice system.. The Committee sponsored the federal Crime Victims with Disabilities Awareness Act that was introduced by Senator DeWine and others. President Clinton signed this Act into law in 1998. The Act requires the National Crime Victims Survey to begin collecting data on crime against people with disabilities. This data has not been collected before by the Survey. The Act also requires the U.S. Attorney General to issue a Report on crime and violence against people with disabilities. That Report is due this year. Our Crime Committee is now working on proposed legislation, the Crime Victims with Disabilities Services Act. Senators DeWine and Feinstein are considering introducing it in the next session of Congress.
Our Committee helped convince
the of California’s Governor, Gray Davis, to establish the Crime
Victims with Disabilities Initiative. This is the first permanent state
government program that addresses the issue of crime against people with
disabilities. California’s Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, has committed to
developing a package on how to investigate and prosecute crimes against people
with disabilities and one or more video training packages on how to interview
and prepare for trial crime victims with disabilities.
A Call to Arms
A problem doesn’t exist for some people unless there is public pressure to address it. Although this pressure is beginning to build, it is still not sufficient enough to force all organizations to address this pattern of violence against the people we serve. Reforms in this area will come from the personal commitment, professionalism and integrity of leaders in our field. We, as individual leaders, will drive the changes that are needed to overcome these barriers to equal justice and equal protection of the people we serve. We have the opportunity to make a major difference in the lives of people with developmental disabilities by taking a leadership role in addressing this unmet need. I ask you to join the growing number of those of us engaged in this struggle.
Used with permission