OVC Bulletin

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office for Victims of Crime

Office for Victims of Crime

Advocating for the Fair

Treatment of Crime Victims

Message from

The Director

During the past two decades, the victim

assistance field has made tremendous

progress in securing fundamental justice and

comprehensive services for all crime victims.

However, many crime victims remain unidentified and unserved. To ensure these

“invisible” victims are reached, the Office

for Victims of Crime (OVC) provided funding to the National Organization for Victim

Assistance (NOVA) for the project Working

with Crime Victims with Disabilities. As part

of this project, NOVA coordinated a

symposium that brought together experts in

the disability advocacy, victim assistance,

and research fields to address the issues of

justice and access to services for crime

victims with disabilities. This symposium

was one of the first national scope initiatives

that focused exclusively on individuals with

disabilities within the criminal justice

system, not as offenders, but as victims.

The findings of the symposium communicated in this OVC Bulletin illustrate that

many crime victims with disabilities have

never participated in the criminal justice

process, even those who have been repeatedly and brutally victimized. The highlighted

recommendations will assist advocates in

their efforts to ensure that crime victims

with disabilities have full access to the

criminal justice system and receive their

entitled services. Lastly, a few of the existing

programs that are working actively to serve

crime victims with disabilities are described.

We know that the issues involved in assisting

victims with disabilities present tremendous

challenges. But we have full confidence that

the victim assistance and disability advocacy

communities will embrace these challenges

like they have so many others. Working with

Crime Victims with Disabilities represents a

small but significant step toward ensuring

justice and access to services for all crime

victims.

Kathryn M. Turman

Acting Director

Working with Victims of Crime

with Disabilities

by Cheryl Guidry Tyiska, Director of Victim Services

National Organization for Victim Assistance

Introduction

This Bulletin is a product of the

Symposium on Working with Crime

Victims with Disabilities, funded by

the Office for Victims of Crime

(OVC) and coordinated by the National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA), on January 23-24,

1998, in Arlington, Virginia. The

Symposium brought together experts

from the disability advocacy and

victim assistance and research fields,

and they raised as many questions as

they answered, thus opening the way

for the victim assistance field to look

more closely at a large and underserved crime victim population. As a

result of their discussions, they

developed recommendations for OVC

and the victim assistance field on

improving the response in serving

crime victims with disabilities, which

are included in this Bulletin.

Historically, all victims of crime have

been denied full participation in the

criminal justice process. Crime

victims with disabilities and their

families are even less likely to reap

the benefits of the criminal justice

system. Disability advocates report

that crimes against people with

disabilities are often not reported to

police. Of those that lead to an

investigation and an arrest, very few

are prosecuted. When going through

the criminal justice process, few

victims with disabilities come into

contact with a crime victim advocate.

Often when victim services are

provided, they may be inappropriate

due to inadequate training of victim

service providers.

As with most types of crime and

crime victims, underreporting of

crimes perpetrated against people with

disabilities is a major problem.

Currently there is no authoritative

research that details how many

individuals with a disability become

crime victims or how many people

become disabled by criminal attacks.

Nor has the victim assistance field

adequately identified the best practices for serving victims with unique

needs or how to train criminal justice

system personnel – including victim

specialists – to make services truly

accessible to all crime victims.

Limited information exists regarding

the criminal victimization of people

with disabilities, but the little that is

September 1998
2

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

available is horrifying in nature and

scope. Joan Petersilia, Researcher and

Professor of Criminology at the

University of California, Irvine, stated

that persons with developmental

disabilities have a 4 to 10 times higher

risk of becoming crime victims than

persons without a disability, in her

Report to the California Senate Public

Safety Committee hearings on “Persons with Developmental Disabilities

in the Criminal Justice System.” In

addition, she says, “Children with any

kind of disability are more than twice

as likely as nondisabled children to be

physically abused and almost twice as

likely to be sexually abused.” Others

in the crime victims field recount

anecdotal experiences from their work

that illustrate that crimes against

people with disabilities are often

extremely violent and calculatedly

intended to injure, control, and

humiliate the victim.

Obstacles Unique to the

Disability Community

Some of the numerous social and

legal problems faced by people with

disabilities can be summarized as

follows:

Isolation

Our society often segregates persons

with disabilities through physical and

social isolation, with institutionalization representing the extreme. As a

result of pervasive isolation, people

with disabilities may not learn about

available services and resources nor

are they routinely informed of rights

they have by law. This is particularly

true for people with more severe

disabling conditions, older people

with disabilities, and younger people

with developmental disabilities.

Indeed, many people who are chronically victimized do not even know

that society condemns such predatory

conduct and has tools to end and

redress that wrong.

Limited Access

Physical Accessibility: In many

instances, crime victims with disabilities do not have physical access to

services. Architectural barriers in

buildings and public transportation

systems mean that many crime

victims with disabilities cannot visit

criminal justice agencies or victim

assistance programs. The Americans

with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

addresses key issues of accessibility,

but as Symposium participants pointed

out, there is an extensive lack of

understanding of how Titles II and III

of the ADA pertain to the criminal

justice and victim assistance fields.

Moreover, this lack of understanding

is frequently coupled with a fear that

making services accessible to crime

victims with disabilities will require

expensive, disruptive adaptations.

Attitudinal Accessibility: Attitudes toward the person with a disability is as

important or more so than physical

accessibility. In addition to accessible

physical environments, program staff

must be welcoming toward people

with disabilities and show in their demeanor and in the quality of their programs that they sincerely want to work

collaboratively to serve the community.

Underreporting of the Crime

Underreporting of crime is a pervasive

problem that the victim assistance

field is addressing on many fronts.

For example, the Rape, Abuse, and

Incest National Network (RAINN)1

estimates that 1,000 rapes occur every

day in the U.S., but only about 300

will ever be reported to the police. A

crime may go unreported for many

reasons: mobility or communication

barriers, the social or physical isolation of the victim, a victim’s normal

“Children with any kind of

disability are more than twice

as likely as nondisabled

children to be physically

abused and almost twice as

likely to be sexually abused.”

In California, a woman was

stabbed in the back during a

robbery attempt. As a result of

the assault, she became

paraplegic. Unfortunately,

neither the police nor hospital

staff told her about victim

assistance or independent

living services. Because the

assailant was never

apprehended, the prosecutorbased victim assistance

program did not provide her

with services. In her anger

and depression, she became

suicidal. She survived a

suicide attempt only because

an alert nurse resuscitated her

in time.

Reginald Robinson, former Acting

Director of the Office for Victims of

Crime, asked the Symposium participantsC“How can we better identify

and serve all crime victims who need

advocacy and services? Are we rising

to the challenge of being inclusive as

we define the populations that deserve

our attention and support?” This

Bulletin highlights the main discussion points and recommendations

developed by the Symposium participants and seeks to encourage victim

assistance program staff to take the

necessary steps to better serve crime

victims with disabilities in their

communities.

1 RAINN, 635-B Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.,

Washington, DC 20003
3

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

feelings of shame and self-blame, ignorance of the justice system, or the

perpetrator is a family member or primary caregiver. In crimes involving a

victim with a disability, one or more

of these factors may prevent the crime

from ever being reported. When the

crime is reported, the reporting agency

often fails to note that the victim had

a disability, especially if the crime is

reported by someone other than the

victim. Later, assumptions and prejudice about the reliability of the testimony of victims with disabilities can

deny them access to justice in the courts.

Limited Advocacy

Despite progress by disability rights

activists, advocacy on their own

behalf is still limited. Again, just as

with many crime victims, a person

who wants to access criminal justice

decisionmaking processes is unable to

do so without adequate tools to enable

full participation.

Myths

The following three myths contribute

to stereotyping which often results in

discrimination against people with

disabilities:

The first myth is the perception that

people with disabilities are “suffering.” Rather than extending legal

rights and protections, as with other

oppressed groups, a societal response

prior to passage of the ADA typically

was to extend “charity.” Being kind

to a person with a disability is not an

acceptable substitute for the provision

of civil rights protections.

The second myth is that people with

disabilities lack the ability to make

choices or determine for themselves

what is best for them in all spheres of

life (physical, mental, emotional,

spiritual, political, sexual, and financial). Although individuals with

severe cognitive impairments may

need greater support and advocacy

services, this does not impede their

ability or preclude their right to

participate actively in decisions

affecting their lives.

The third myth, according to crime

victim advocates, is that many people

in society fear contact with crime

victims generally, as though their

distresses are contagious. An even

stronger stigma attaches to people

with disabilities. Our society is not

socialized to integrate differences in

abilities as a part of our perception of

“normality.” The cultural norms for

functioning include good hearing and

vision, physical independence and

mobility, mental alertness, the ability

to communicate primarily through the

written and spoken word, and physical

attractiveness. Deviations from those

norms tend to frighten those in the

“able-bodied majority” who define the

concept of normal abilities. When the

two forces of stigma are joinedC

victimization and disabilityCattitudinal barriers to providing healing and

justice can seem even more formidable.

Until recently, the crime victims’

movement has not worked systematically to identify issues and challenges

involved in responding more effectively to victims with disabilities.

Improving service delivery to people

with disabilities must become a

priority because the crime victims’

rights movement is founded on the

premise that every crime victim

deserves fundamental justice and

comprehensive, quality services.

Background

Since the early days of the victims’

rights movement, the effort has been

animated by a two-fold desire to address the trauma of victimization and to

move crime victims from outside of

the criminal justice system, looking

in, to the center of the process. Fostering full participation of crime victims

has been at the heart of what the victims’ rights movement has sought to

achieve. Victim advocates, in particular, provide the tools that allow crime

victims to reconstruct their lives and

regain the control that was taken from

them by the criminal. This healing

process enables victims to perceive

themselves as survivors and in most

instances, to seek and achieve full

engagement with society once again.

Inclusion and participation have been

at the heart of a parallel civil rights

movement. The disability rights

movement has worked diligently to

ensure that people with disabilities are

able to contribute their considerable

talents to society. A primary difference for a person with a disability

who becomes a crime victim, however, is that the criminal victimization

frequently compounds existing

problems caused by a lack of accessibility to basic social services, poverty,

institutionalization, and other barriers

to equal rights. A crime that would be

damaging to an able-bodied person is

frequently a devastating blow to a

person with a disability. Indeed, for

many, it is the criminal assault itself

that results in a disability, when major

life functionsCthe ability to move, to

communicate, to understandCare

disrupted temporarily or permanently.

Many people with disabling conditions are especially vulnerable to

victimization because of their real or

perceived inability to fight or flee, or

to notify others and testify about the

victimization. Frequently, because a

person with a disability may be more

physically frail, the victimization may

exacerbate existing health or mental

health problems. For those who hope
4

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

that their disability may “protect”

them from criminal victimization, it is

shocking to learn that many criminals

do not act upon a perceived “desirability” of the intended victim. Indeed,

many perpetrators may be unaware

that their victims have a disability.

Here, the victim is truly randomC

another one of us in the wrong place

at the wrong timeCalthough that

victim’s ability to frustrate the

criminal’s intent may be less than a

person’s without a disability.

Another reality is that many offenders

are motivated by a desire to obtain

control over the victim and measure

their potential prey for vulnerabilities.

Many people with disabilities, because they are perceived as unable to

physically defend themselves, or

identify the attacker, or call for help,

are perfect targets for such offenders.

People with disabilities are also

vulnerable to abuse by the very professionals and other caregivers who

provide them with services. Just as

many pedophiles gravitate to youthserving occupations, so do many other

predators seek work as caregivers to

people with disabilities. Indeed, in

one survey, virtually halfC48.1

percentCof the perpetrators of sexual

abuse against people with disabilities

had gained access to their victims

through disability services.2

People who are victimized are vulnerable to exacerbated suffering. Most

victims will experience a sense of

shock, disbelief, or denial that the

crime occurred, often followed by

cataclysmic emotions: fear, anger,

confusion, guilt, humiliation and

grief, among others. But people with

disabilities may have intensified

reactions because they may already

feel stigmatized and often have low

self-esteem due to societal attitudes.

The sense of self-blame, confusion,

vulnerability, and loss of trust may be

exaggerated, as may be an ambivalence or negativity related to their perception of their bodies. Denial and

avoidance of the need to cope with the

aftermath may complicate the identification of crime victims with a disability. Some victims, particularly elderly

and those with developmental disabilities, will need services designed

to enhance a feeling of safety and

security regarding future victimization.

Unlike most in this series of OVC

Bulletins focusing on special categories of victims, this one offers no

authoritative “census” describing the

numbers and characteristics of the

victim population under review. The

implementation of such a census is

very high on the agenda of those working in both the victim rights and disability rights arenas so that, at last, the

nation will have reliable data on who

among the population with disabilities

is hurt by crime, in what way, and

how frequently. Despite the absence

of an authoritative census, there are a

number of studies that indicate that

the risk of criminal victimization is

much higher for an individual with a

disability than for someone without a

physical or cognitive disability.

The following are statistics revealed

by some studies. For example, research has found that 68 percent to 83

percent of women with developmental

disabilities will be sexually assaulted

in their lifetime, which represents a 50

percent higher rate than the rest of the

population.3

 People with developmental disabilities are more likely to be

A blind woman who was

regularly beaten by her spouse

received nothing but disdain

from her family and few

friends. She felt isolated and

ashamed. After an

appearance by the Executive

Director of NOVA on a

national television show, the

woman called NOVA and

asked for helpCon the

condition that she be

allowed to maintain her

anonymity.

An elderly woman who was

unable to walk was cared for

at home by family members.

Her grandson, a drug user,

frequently stole money from

her, especially after the third

of each month, when her

Social Security Disability

Income check arrived. The

woman would tuck her money

under her to hide it from her

grandson. Once, in a state of

anger when he could not find

her money, he flipped her over

and she fell out of the bed onto

the floor. She sustained

several bruises but was not

seen by a doctor. She did not

report the abuse or the theft to

the police out of fear that her

family would no longer want

to care for her.

2 Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People

With Disabilities: The End of Silent Acceptance?,

Dick Sobsey, R.N., Ed.D., 1994, pp. 75-76, Paul H.

Brookes Publishing Co.

3 Your Safety . . . Your Rights & Personal Safety

and Abuse Prevention Education Program to

Empower Adults with Disabilities and Train Service

Providers. T. Pease and B. Frantz, 1994,

Doylestown, PA: Network of Victim Assistance.
5

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

re-victimized by the same person and

more than half never seek assistance

from legal or treatment services

(Pease & Frantz, 1994). It is not just

individuals with developmental

disabilities who suffer very high rates

of victimization. A study of psychiatric inpatients found that 81 percent had been physically or sexually

assaulted.4 The Colorado Department

of Health estimates that upward of 85

percent of women with disabilities are

victims of domestic abuse, in comparison with, on average, 25 to 50

percent of the general population.5

About 54 million Americans live with

a wide array of physical, cognitive,

and emotional disabilities. Some

disabilities will be more easily

discernable than others. People who

use wheelchairs, service animals, or

walkers are easy to identify. Less

obvious will be those with intellectual

or mental disabilities (such as people

who have learning disabilities or

schizophrenia) and those with chronic

illnesses (such as people with chronic

fatigue syndrome, seizure disorders,

arthritis, alcoholism and drug addiction, and HIV disease). As with any

crime victim, people with disabilities

may be victims of domestic violence,

child abuse, sexual assault, homicide,

fraud and other types of crimes. They

are victimized by family members,

acquaintances, strangers, institutional

personnel, and caregivers. Many are

victimized multiple times.

In addition to people who have been

disabled since birth, some people are

disabled as a result of violent assaults.

Catastrophic physical injuries may

result in loss of abilities to see, hear,

touch, taste, feel, move, and think in

the usual ways. Although statistics on

crime-related physical injuries are

imperfect, it has been estimated that at

least 6 million serious injuries occur

each year due to crime, resulting in

either temporary or permanent disability. The National Rehabilitation

Information Center (NARIC) has

estimated that a large percentage—

perhaps as many as 50 percent—of

patients who are long-term residents

of hospitals and specialized rehabilita5 Domestic Violence and Women and Children

With Disabilities, Millbank Memorial Fund Report,

Paul Feuerstein, June 1997, unpublished

4 Assault Experiences of 100 Psychiatric

Inpatients: Evidence for the Need for Routine

Inquiry. Jacobson, A. and Richardson, B. (1987)

American Journal of Psychiatry, 144(7), 908-913.)

tion centers are there due to crimerelated injuries. Those patients seldom

receive outreach from a crime victim

assistance or compensation program.

Pending a more comprehensive

portrait of crime victims within the

disability community, it is important

for the victim assistance field to gain a

better understanding of that community as a whole.

According to the National Council on Disability:

As a group, people with disabilities

are older, poorer, less educated, and

less employed than people without

disabilities. The most widely accepted estimate of the number of

people with disabilities is 49 million

non-institutionalized Americans

(McNeil, 1993). As such, people with

disabilities constitute the single largest

minority group identified in the

United States, surpassing the elderly

(about 33.2 million) and African

Americans (about 32.7 million)

(Bureau of the Census 1995). [Note:

The October 1997 update to this

report indicates 54 million Americans

reporting having some level of

disability, with 26 million of those

having a severe disability.]

Data from the 1990 Census indicate

that about 2.3 million residents of

institutions have disabilities, most of

these residing in nursing homes.

Others live in mental hospitals,

correctional institutions and mental

retardation facilities. Mental disability is the most frequent impairment

cited among those living in institutions (LaPlante 1991). In the last

decade, the number of people with

disabilities who are homeless has

increased, particularly those with

mental disabilities.

The percentage of people with a

disability increases with age. While 5

percent of the population less than

age 18 has a disability, 84.2 percent of

those age 85 and over have a disability. Of those age 18-44, 13.6 percent

have a disability, while of those age

45-64, 29.2 percent have a disability

(McNeil, 1993). As the baby boom

generation advances in age, the

number of people with disabilities

will likewise increase.

There are differences in the prevalence of severe disability among

races, ethnicity groups and sexes. For

the population aged 15-64, 7.4

percent of Whites had severe disabilities, compared to 12.7 percent of

African Americans, 11.7 percent of

American Indians, Eskimos or Aleuts,

9.1 percent of those from Hispanic

origin and 4.5 percent of Asian or

Pacific Islanders. Males had a

disability rate of 18.7 percent and a

severe disability rate of 8.1 percent.

For females, the corresponding rates

were 20.2 percent and 11 percent

(McNeil, 1993).

C Achieving Independence: The

Challenge for the 21st Century,

Report of the National Council on

Disability, July 26, 1996, pages 13-14.
6

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

Purpose of the Project

The Symposium participants came

together to develop an action plan for

victim service providers and other

allied professionals to improve their

capacity to identify and respond to

crime victims with disabilities. Over

the course of 2 days, participants

identified issues, service gaps, and

barriers to access; recommended

needed changes; and spotlighted

successful programs and promising

practices that reach and serve crime

victims with a wide array of disabling

conditions. The Symposium provided

an opportunity for a candid exchange

of ideas among a diverse array of

individuals and the organizations that

they represented. Although unanimity

did not always reign, participants were

united in their quest of affording all

crime victims fundamental justice and

comprehensive services.

In the months before the Symposium,

NOVA and OVC staff identified

knowledgeable people from the fields

of disability rights, protection and

advocacy, crime victim assistance,

law, and research. A number of these

pioneers were invited to attend the 2-

day transfer-of-knowledge Symposium. Resource materials were

identified for Symposium attendees to

review, and an agenda was designed

that included presentations from

experts, facilitated discussion, and

small working groups. Symposium

participants focused on promising

practices currently in use and identified areas for future action. The

Symposium was recorded so that a

full transcript would be available to

aid in developing the recommendations report and subsequently this

Bulletin.

Participants began their discussion by

addressing the following questions:

1. How do we begin to understand

the experiences of crime victims who

are disabled?

l What are the psychological, economic, social, and legal experiences of

people with disabilities who come in

contact with the law enforcement,

judicial, correctional, emergency

medical, and victim service systems?

l How has the passage of the ADA

affected the criminal justice system’s

response to these victims?

2. How do we improve service

delivery to crime victims who are

disabled?

l How can we improve reporting of

crimes against people with disabilities?

l How can we perform better

outreach to crime victims with disabilities?

l How can we better serve victims

whose perpetrators are their primary

caregivers?

l What may be different for those

who were disabled prior to their

victimization than for those who

became disabled as a result of the

criminal assault?

l How do we prepare victim service

programs to serve all victims with

disabilities?

l What do victims with disabilities

need/want from the system?

l What strategies can be employed

to ensure that people with disabilities

do not “fall through the cracks” of the

service delivery system, especially those

who are institutionalized or hospitalized

for long periods of time and those

who rely on the care of a personal

assistant or home health care system?

3. What do crime victim advocates

need to know to effectively respond to

people with different kinds of disabilities (i.e., victims with developmental disabilities and their families,

newly-disabled victims, victims with

physical disabilities, and victims with

other types of cognitive or mental

disabilities)?

4. What do crime victim advocates need

to know about the Americans With

Disabilities Act and its enforcement?

Unique Issues

Identified

During the Symposium, participants

raised many issues that criminal

justice and victim assistance professionals need to consider when

working with crime victims with

disabilities. Although this list is not

exhaustive, it is representative of some

of the main concerns of the group.

Crime Victims with

Disabilities Have Distinct

Issues

Most issues that confront crime

victims with disabilities are issues that

affect all crime victims. They include

underreporting of crimes; a lack of

responsiveness from law enforcement

or prosecutors based on a perceived

lack of credibility on the part of the

victim; repeated victimization; lack of

effective, appropriate services, physical or social isolation of the victim;

and a judicial process that is centered

on the rights and needs of the offender, not the victim. However, there

are important issues and even distinctions that must be emphasized when

serving victims with disabilities.

l Crime victims with disabilites

have a higher risk of victimization

than crime victims without disabilities, and face a greater risk of being

revictimized, often at the hands of a

caregiver or family member. Consequently, victims may not be in a position to report the crime without fear

of retaliation from the care provider.
7

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

l A crime victim with a disability

or a person who becomes disabled due

to crime may not have the resources

or the physical stamina to cope with

the many delays and hurdles that

typically occur in the criminal justice

system. For example, if a victim is

paralyzed as a result of a crime, the

victim will be adjusting to this recent

disability at the same time that he or

she is interacting with the criminal

justice system. The combination may

well be overwhelming.

l Child custody issues are typically

complex in cases of domestic violence. When the victim has a disability, the issues may be further complicated. According to disability

advocates, some courts have awarded

custody to the batterer, based on an

assumption that children may be

better-off with an able-bodied offender

than with a victim who has a disability.

Vocabulary Assigned to the

Disablility Community

The words that we use are important,

as the following issues demonstrate:

l Victim is a loaded term in the

disability rights community. In the

medical system, people with disabilities have historically been considered

“victims” of their disabilities, i.e., a

“victim” of polio. The term reinforces

an already-existing, socially-imposed

negative identity. Disability advocates

have struggled to transform their

identity from “victim” to something

more positive; therefore, admitting

“victimization” is often experienced

as a setback. Victim advocates have

also long been concerned about using

language that would include all crime

victims and yet not be stigmatizing.

Service providers working with crime

victims could clarify the issue by

asking the victims how they prefer to

be characterized. Some individuals

may prefer the term survivor, while

others may feel that the use of victim

is an appropriate word to describe

their status in the aftermath of violent

or repeated victimization.

l Special services is another loaded

term with negative connotations.

Crime victims with disabilities do not

want anything special. They want the

rights and services to which they are

rightly entitled and request commonsense accommodations to ensure that

they can receive them. However, many

crime victims (not just those with

physical or cognitive disabilities) will

need individualized attention and

services.

l Disability is more than a physical/

emotional/mental issue. It is a

political and social issue as well, and

frequently is a major source of a

person’s identity because of societal

attitudes. Many people with disabilities view their disabilities as disabling

only to the extent to which society

does not provide an accommodating

environment.

l Just as with many victims,

violence may be defined differently

for many people with disabilities. For

example, the withholding of a wheelchair, thus forcing a person to slide

along the floor, might be considered

an act of violence. In that regard, it is

important to note that many acts of

criminal violence committed against

vulnerable individuals, such as

children, the elderly, and individuals

with disabilities, are referred to as

forms of abuse. While the behavior is

certainly abusive, using the term

abuse instead of violence can serve to

minimize the severity of the crime

against the victim.

l The disability community includes

family members, who, like the family

members of many crime victims, are

frequently secondary victims.

Diverse Needs

There is no single, monolithic “disability community.” It is made up of

many smaller communities that may

vary from one geographic location to

another, and according to the type of

disability:

l Not all disability advocates

support mandatory reporting of crimes

against people with disabilities. An

individual struggling to maintain

independence may perceive mandatory reporting as excessive “protectionism,” while others believe that the

legal requirement to report crimes

against “vulnerable adults” is integral

to ensuring their safety.

l There are varying numbers of

Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people

throughout the country. For example,

a large number of Deaf and Hard-ofHearing people are in the Washington,

D.C. area, probably because of the

presence of Gallaudet University, the

largest 4-year liberal arts university

for the Deaf in the United States.

Other communities of similar size

may have far fewer Deaf residents.

However, even within the communities of people with similar disabilities

(for example, those with spinal cord

injuries, or those who are blind, or

those with learning disabilities), it

must be remembered that the community is composed of separate, unique

individuals who differ from one

another and will require individualized assistance. All racial, ethnic, and

socio-economic groups include people

with disabilities.

l Accessibility is different depending on the disability (also see p. 2

Limited Access).
8

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

Highlighting Promising

Practices

In preparation for the Symposium,

NOVA staff identified victim assistance programs that were making

inroads in reaching out to crime

victims with disabilities, as well as

pertinent training materials. NOVA is

continuing to seek information about

effective programs and training

materials that focus on serving crime

victims with disabilities. The following are organizations which were

highlighted at the Symposium, as well

as a few from programs who were

unable to have a representative present.

1. The Domestic Violence Initiative

for Women With Disabilities was

founded to create, promote, and

support viable alternatives for women

with disabilities who are victims/

survivors of domestic violence and/or

caretaker abuse. This program also

serves those who have become

disabled as a result of domestic abuse.

DVI provides extensive education and

training to relevant service providers

and the public about domestic violence and disability issues. For more

information, call 303–839–5510 voice/

tdd (Denver, CO).

2. The Metropolitan Organization

to Counter Sexual Assault Developmental Disabilities Resource Center

operates a sexual abuse prevention and

information program for persons with

disabilities. For more information,

call 816–931–4527 (Kansas City, MO).

3. The Network of Victim Assistance

has produced a training curriculum

and video entitled “Your Safety,

Your Rights,” which highlights

personal safety and abuse prevention

information for adults with disabilities

and for service providers. For more

information, call 215–348–5664

(Doylestown, PA).

4. Abused Deaf Women’s Advocacy

Services (ADWAS) is a program of

advocacy and services specifically for

Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard-ofHearing victims of domestic violence

and sexual assault. Services include a

24-hour crisis line and safe homes for

battered women. ADWAS was developed and is administered by Marilyn

Smith, a sexual assault survivor who

is Deaf. In 1996, Ms. Smith received

the Crime Victim Service Award, the

highest Federal award for service to

victims. For more information, call

206–726–0093 (TTY only) or email to

hilsmjs@aol.com (Seattle, WA).

5. The Hennepin County Attorney’s

Office and Crime Victim Initiative

have spearheaded development of a

training program entitled “Police and

People with Disabilities,” focusing on

the important role of law enforcement

in serving crime victims with disabilities. For more information, call 800–

279–8284 (Minneapolis, MN).

6. The Victim Services Unit of the

Ventura County District Attorney’s

Office has a history of seeking out

under served victim groups in the

county. Their program which serves

crime victims with disabilities is one

of several unique services they

provide. For more information, call

805–654–2500 (Ventura, CA).

7. Victim Services 2000, a demonstration project funded by OVC to

showcase a comprehensive, seamless

model of victim assistance, has

worked closely with disability rights

specialists in the community to

provide training to local victim

service providers on how to best serve

crime victims with disabilities. For

more information, call 303-640-4933

(Denver, CO).

8. Victim Assistance to Deaf Adults

and Children (VADAC). The Department of Public Safety in South

Carolina awarded VOCA funding to

the State Department of Mental

Health Services to deliver comprehensive victim assistance to Deaf and

Hard-of-Hearing crime victims in

fifteen counties in upstate South

Carolina. Most services are provided

in the home by case managers who are

fluent in American Sign Language.

Services include interpreting, case

management, crisis counseling,

therapy, victim rights information, and

information about other available

services. For more information, call

864–297–5044 or 864–297–5130

(TTY) (State of South Carolina).

9. Domestic Violence Access

Project. In the State of Hawaii, the

Department of the Attorney General

has awarded Violence Against Women

Act (VAWA) grant funding to a

statewide project that is developing

linkages between domestic violence

programs and service providers

working with women with disabilities.

The project provides specialized

equipment to aid in providing services, as well as training for disability

service providers on the nature of

domestic violence and how to recognize it, how to elicit necessary information from victims and how to

access available services. The development of partnerships and protocols

for collaborative efforts should result

in better services for domestic violence victims with disabilities. For

more information, call 808–534–0040

(State of Hawaii).

10. Barrier Free Living, Inc., (BFLI)

has been working with family violence victims with disabilities for the

past 10 years, and has recently expanded its program to include a

hotline for victims with disabilities.
9

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

In 1986, BFLI received a national

award from the National Safety Council

for Improving the Lives of People

With Disabilities. A report entitled

Domestic Violence and Women and

Children with Disabilities by BFLI

Executive Director Paul Feuerstein

provides an excellent overview of the

problems of women and children with

disabilities. For more information,

call 212–677–6668 (New York, NY).

11. Advocacy for Women and Kids in

Emergencies (AWAKE) is a program

for battered women who are recovering from substance abuse, as well as

battered women with physical and

cognitive disabilities. Services are

offered in a local hospital, community

health center, and a public housing

project. The available counseling,

educational, and advocacy services

focus on the development of selfesteem, parenting skills, healing and

self-discovery, and ultimately, for a

future based on sobriety. For more

information, call 617–355–4760

(Boston, MA).

12. Back to Life is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to

creating opportunities for people with

disabilities to participate fully and

safely in their communities. The

organization provides training and

technical assistance to crime victims

with disabilities and to the practitioners who work with these victims.

For more information, call 512–255–

1465, Fax 512– 255–1746, or email:

btl@inetport.com (Austin, TX).

Recommendations for

Criminal Justice

Agencies and Victim

Service Programs

Many of the recommendations presented by the Symposium participants

apply to all criminal justice agencies:

law enforcement, prosecution, judiciary, corrections, and victim assistance. All agencies must work in

concert with one another to ensure

that vulnerable victims are identified

and served. However, since the focus

of this Bulletin is on improved victim

assistance services, emphasis is placed

on recommendations for those who

work in victim assistance programs.

Victim assistance program staff

interested in implementing any of the

recommendations are welcome to

contact NOVA or OVC staff for

suggestions on how to get started.

Many of the recommendations apply

equally to those victim assistance

programs that are not based in a

criminal justice agency.

Physical Accessibility

1. Criminal justice agencies and

victim assistance programs should

receive training on the requirements of

the Americans with Disabilities Act

(ADA) and should support its vigorous enforcement. Agencies/programs

should take advantage of technical

assistance provided by the Federal

government to help ensure enforcement of the ADA. Programs that are

not required to abide by the letter of

the law should commit to adhering to

the spirit of the law. This will help to

ensure equal access to the justice

systemCas called for by Federal law

and State constitutional amendments

and statutes.

2. When full physical accessibility is

not immediately achievable, criminal

justice agencies and victim assistance

programs should initiate transition

planning that focuses on obtaining

accessibility by a designated date.

Public and nonprofit agencies should

understand that development of

compliance plans are typically mandated under Titles II and III of the

ADA, and with some exceptions,

compliance plans are required, not

optional. These compliance plans

serve as a roadmap in taking incremental steps to improve accessibility,

even if complete implementation of

the plan must be delayed. The victim

assistance sector should join with

disability advocates and representatives of the various populations within

the community to conduct a community needs assessment survey to

ensure that the compliance plan is

appropriate and effective.

Networking and CrossTraining

3. Criminal justice and victim assistance personnel should receive training on disabilities, including developing an understanding of disability

cultures. Special efforts should be

made to identify qualified victim

advocates with disabilities as trainers.

In addition, criminal justice agencies

and victim assistance programs should

enlist qualified people with a wide

range of different disabilities to lead

in all stages of policy development,

decisionmaking, program development, and service delivery for crime

victims with disabilities from the time

of the crime through case disposition

and beyond. People with disabilities

should be proactively recruited and

trained to become volunteers and paid

staff members in criminal justiceoriented programs, especially in

system-based or private victim

assistance programs.

4. Criminal justice agencies and victim assistance programs should reach

out proactively to local disability service organizations. They should provide

them with information about victim

rights and services, then the service

organization in turn, can inform their

constituents on how better to access

the criminal justice system, particularly the victim assistance programs.
10

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

5. Criminal justice agencies and

victim assistance programs must

develop coalitions, cross-training, and

joint training opportunities with

disability advocacy and services

programs to build better working

relationships and to better understand

the services each offer when working

with people with disabilities.6 In

some communities, this coalition

could be formalized as an interagency

team or coordinating council, including involvement of local or State

governmental task forces on disabilities. Communities may wish to

emulate the models developed within

the domestic violence victim advocacy community. The Commonwealth

of Kentucky’s Model Protocol for

Local Coordinating Councils on

Domestic Violence could be a useful

guide. Call 502–564–2611 for

information.

6. Collaborative partnerships must

also be fostered with other community-based entities, such as schools,

social service agencies, citizen groups,

and churches or synagogues. Utilizing the resources of the entire community will help to ensure that service

delivery is seamless, more inclusive,

and does not duplicate or waste

limited resources.

7. Leaders in the victim assistance

and disability advocacy fields should

work together to develop and utilize

innovative ways to communicate, such

as e-mail listservs. These links would

allow the timely sharing of information and ideas between disability

groups and individuals with expertise

in disability rights and services with

similar experts in victim rights and

services. Regional and State Web

sites devoted to the needs of crime

victims offer another way of fostering

this exchange.

Direct Services

8. Agencies should implement or

extend streamlined interviewing and

intake procedures so that crime

victims with disabilities, particularly

those with cognitive or communications disabilities, do not have to bear

repeated interviewing in different

locations. A multidisciplinary approach involving a law enforcement

officer, a prosecutor, a victim assistance specialist, and others, as needed,

in victim-friendly environments would

be more effective and cost-efficient.

9. Agencies should develop and

implement specific protocols on

disclosures, confidentiality, and safety

for crime victims with disabilities,

particularly where there is potential

for retaliation by a caregiver or a

disability services agency. For

example, when a crime victim reports

to a law enforcement officer (or, when

it does not get reported to a police

agency, to a victim advocate), that he

or she is being victimized by a

caregiver and has reason to fear for his

or her safety, that victim should be

provided with assistance to relocate if

necessary and to have emergency replacement caregiver services provided.

10. Criminal justice agencies and

victim assistance programs should be

proactive in acquiring assistive technology that would help crime victims

with disabilities to be informed,

present, heard, and understood more

effectively when they communicate

with law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, and victim advocates.

For example, victim assistance service

providers should know what accommodations will be needed so that a

person with a communication disability can make a Victim Impact Statement at the time of sentencing.

Assistive technology and accommodations costs (i.e., for computer software, sign language interpreters,

paratransit, etc.) should be considered

part of the cost of “doing business.”

Victim assistance agencies should be

aware that under Federal VOCA

guidelines, VOCA funds may be used

to make services accessible to victims

with disabilities. Specific allowable

costs include the purchase of items

such as Braille equipment or TTY/

TTD machines, or for minor building

improvements that make services

more accessible to victims with

disabilities. Specific guidance is

contained in theOffice of Justice

Programs, Office of the Comptroller,

Financial Guide.

11. Once the agency is accessible and

staff is trained, criminal justice

agencies and victim assistance programs should publicize their ability to

work with crime victims with disabilities by putting the universal symbol of

access (the line drawing of a wheelchair) and a TDD/TTY number on all

literature, promotional materials, business cards, etc., used by the agency.

12. Victim assistance and criminal

justice agencies should incorporate

into existing policies, procedures, and

protocols the specific inclusion of

persons with disabilities who are

victims/witnesses of domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse,

impaired driving crashes, survivors of

homicide victims, or other violent

____________________

6 NOVA has presented at least one workshop on

a disability-related topic at its annual conferences

since the early 1980’s. In 1998, NOVA will present

a plenary session on working with crime victims

with disabilities, along with a track of six workshops devoted to this issue. The Office for Victims of

Crime is sponsoring two of these workshops,

including one on requirements of the ADA and

technical assistance available to victim assistance

agencies to meet these requirements. Crime victim

advocates with disabilities will work closely with

the conference coordinator to design and present

the plenary session and the workshops.
11

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

personal crimes. Parallel policies

should be written to cover economic

crimes committed against people with

disabilities.

13. Statistical information about

crime victims with disabilities should

be systematically collected by criminal justice agencies and victim

assistance programs, using the ADA

to define disability status.

14. Prosecutors should invoke hate

crimes statutes, if indicated, when

prosecuting crimes against people

with disabilities. Judges should apply

equal sentencing or sentencing

enhancements, when allowed, for

offenders who victimize people with

disabilities.

15. When a violent personal crime

occurs against a person with a disability who is institutionalized, the

investigation of the crime should not

be handled administratively or informally by the institution’s own investigators. Dan Sorensen, in his California Victims of Crime Committee

Report (January 12, 1997), noted that

there were several studies that suggested that 80 percent to 85 percent of

criminal abuse of residents of institutions (an estimated 2.3 million

people) never reached law enforcement authorities. Criminal prosecution should be pursued in cases of

violent crime.

Recommendations for

National, State, and

Local Disability Rights

Specialists

While many of the recommendations

listed above for victim assistance and

allied professionals in the justice

system also apply to disability rights

specialists, the following are suggestions that are specific to disability

rights communities. Furthermore,

NOVA and OVC staff can make

suggestions on how to locate the

necessary information to get started

with these recommendations.

1. Disability rights and services

specialists should learn about State

and local victim rights legislation.

They should learn how victim assistance programs (both system-based

and private agencies) are set up and

how services and resources, including

crime victim compensation, are accessed. In addition, this information

should be shared with crime victims

with disabilities and their families.

2. People with disabilities, especially

young people, should be educated

about the nature of criminal victimization, to whom they should report

crimes against them, and how to

access help.

3. Personal safety training should be

provided for people with disabilities.

People with substantial disabilities

should work with a knowledgeable

specialist to develop personal safety

plans.

4. Independent living center staff,

benefits rights specialists, protection

and advocacy program staff, and legal

rights specialists should be trained on

how to access State crime victim

compensation programs to benefit

their clients.

5. National disability rights organizations should establish a national

scope criminal justice committee.

This committee would establish a

national agenda that calls for disability rights organizations and criminal

justice authorities to systematically

address the issue of crime against all

groups of people with disabilities.

6. Disability rights advocates need to

work with appropriate allies to establish a personal assistant “bank” for

emergencies (to provide backup assistants and financial resources to pay for

them).

7. Disability rights advocates should

advocate for State laws requiring

criminal background checks on

prospective personal assistants and

other direct service providers before

they are hired to care for individuals

with disabilities. The Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention (OJJDP), Office of Justice

Programs, U.S. Department of Justice,

in conjunction with the American Bar

Association Center on Children and

the Law, recently published Guidelines for the Screening of Persons

Working with Children, the Elderly,

and Individuals with Disabilities in

Need of Support (NCJ# 167248).

While these guidelines do not mandate criminal record checks for all

care providers, they do provide advice

on establishing policies to ensure an

appropriate level of screening based

on specific situations. To obtain a

copy of this publication, call or write

the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse/

NCJRS, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville,

Maryland 20849-6000, telephone

number 800-638-8736, fax number

301-519-5212. This document may

also be viewed online or downloaded

from the OJJDP Home Page:

www.ncjrs.org/ojjhome.htm.

8. Personnel of programs that provide services to people with disabilities should be encouraged and trained

to ask about a client’s victimization

history as part of the routine intake/

assessment process. The disclosure

should be entirely voluntary and should

be confidential. If a client discloses

that he or she has been a crime victim

in the past or is currently being
12

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

victimized, the service provider should

inform the client that there may be

victim rights laws that offer protection

and offer to refer the client to an

appropriate victim assistance agency.

Recommendations for

the Office for Victims of

Crime

1. OVC should lead the victim

assistance field in ensuring that crime

victims with disabilities are afforded

basic rights and access to needed

services. OVC should encourage a

strong State response to Section

IV.A.4 of the Final Program Guidelines for the VOCA Victim Assistance

Grant Program. This Section encourages States to identify gaps in available services, not just by the types of

crimes committed but also by victims’

demographic characteristics, including

disability status.

2. OVC should work cooperatively

with State Crime Victim Assistance

and Compensation Programs to ensure

that regional training for VOCA subrecipients on the requirements of the

ADA is available. OVC could then

develop an annual accessibility “checklist” for State VOCA administrators,

who in turn could provide guidance to

VOCA sub-recipients about complying with the ADA.

3. OVC should promote the use of

available resources and foster the identification and development of other resources to help ensure that the victim

assistance fieldCin particular those

programs funded by VOCACis educated about issues and concerns relevant to crime victims with disabilities

and trained to provide services efficiently, effectively, and with compassion.

l States receiving VOCA funds

have the option of using up to 6

percent of the State’s victim assistance

grant for the purpose of conducting

statewide and/or regional trainings of

victim services staff. States should be

encouraged to use this option to

provide needed training to practitioners on the best practices in serving

crime victims with disabilities.

l OVC should propose and encourage the formation of a Working Group

composed of State VOCA Administrators and service providers to help

determine the most effective ways to

utilize available resources.

4. OVC should ensure that training

materials developed under OVC

Grants and Cooperative Agreements

are available through the OVC Resource Center. They should be offered

in a variety of formats that can be

used by victim advocates with disabilities or disseminated to the

disability rights community to better

educate consumers with disabilities

and disability service providers. For

example, videos produced with OVC

funding should be required to be

open-captioned so that Deaf people

will be able to use them.

5. OVC should direct VOCA discretionary grant funding to develop

training and technical assistance

projects that include a strong focus on

serving crime victims with disabilities. Special attention should be

addressed to crime victims with

disabilities from minority and lowincome groups, who are least likely of

all crime victims to receive victim

assistance services. OVC is currently

funding several multiyear demonstration projects, Victim Services 2000,

which are designed to serve as models

for communities in rural and urban

settings that wish to develop networks

of integrated and comprehensive

services for crime victims. OVC

should ensure that the needs and

issues of crime victims with disabilities are addressed comprehensively in

these demonstration projects.

6. OVC should work closely with

State victim compensation administrators to identify issues and service gaps

related to the long-term medical and

mental health needs of crime victims

with disabilities when developing

crime victim compensation guidelines. For example, a long-term

medical expense for one Symposium

participant who became blind after

being shot, is to be refitted for and to

replace her prosthetic eyes every few

years; an expense of about $1,700.

7. OVC should encourage presentations on themes relevant to increasing

accessibility of services for crime

victims with disabilities at all State,

regional, or national conferences,

conventions, symposia, focus groups

or meetings funded by OVC. In

particular, training for VOCA administrators attending the annual VOCA

conference should promote the importance of serving this population of

crime victims. The training should

present the most efficient ways to use

State VOCA funds to increase physical access through facility modifications or acquiring specialized communication equipment. OVC should also

study how much VOCA funding is

currently being spent annually to

increase access of services to crime

victims with disabilities, and how

much additional VOCA funding will

be needed to ensure full accessibility.

8. OVC should establish dynamic

partnerships with disability communities at the national level (paralleling

local efforts) to encourage policy and

program development that will benefit

crime victims with disabilities.
13

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

9. OVC should develop a mechanism

for using and disseminating the

information on disability status that is

currently collected by VOCA

subrecipients. Such statistics could be

used to develop “benchmarking”

standards.

The Federal Performance Report

Working Group should be composed

of representatives from (1) the Office

for Victims of Crime and the Violence

Against Women Grants Office of the

Office of Justice Programs at the U.S.

Department of Justice and (2) The

Center for Disease Control and Administration on Children and Families

of the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services. The Working Group

will develop a standardized Statistical

Summary Subgrant Award Report that

could be used by all organizations

receiving Federal funding to assist

victims of crime from any of these

Federal funding sources. OVC should

formally recommend that this standardized report include disability

status and the nature of the disability

as part of the demographic data that is

collected.

10. The National Victim Assistance

Academy, funded by OVC, should

build on the current training component on working with crime victims

with disabilities.

Recommendations for

Other Department of

Justice Agencies

1. The National Institute of Justice

should work with the appropriate

disability-related research agencies to

establish a long-term research agenda

focusing on the needs of crime

victims with disabilities from the time

of the occurrence of the crime through

the entire criminal justice process.

Such research should seek to

determine the best methodologies for

identifying the level and nature of

victimization risk, the impact of

criminal victimization on victims with

disabilities, the need for specialized

types of victim services, the ability to

access victim services, and the challenges posed to the criminal justice

system in investigating and prosecuting the offenders, as well as preventing future victimization.

 2. The OVC funded project administered by the National Institute of

Justice on “The Effectiveness of

VOCA Funding in Meeting the Needs

of Crime Victims” should incorporate

specific strategies to measure the

ability of VOCA subrecipients to

identify and serve crime victims with

disabilities and to identify the barriers

that impede those efforts.

3. The National Crime Victimization

Survey, the Unified Crime Report, and

other data collection surveys should

be redesigned to capture data on the

incidence of violence against people

with disabilities and the number of

people who become disabled due to

crime-related catastrophic physical

injuries. If alternative survey methods

are used, they should be designed and

implemented with sufficient resources

so that their findings are as authoritative as others produced by the Department of Justice.

4. Appropriate offices in the Department of Justice should work collaboratively to focus on the problems of

crime against people with disabilities

to foster cooperation in the development of policy initiatives at all governmental levels.

5. The Violence Against Women

Grants Office and the Civil Rights

Division of the Department of Justice

should work to enhance the physical

and attitudinal accessibility of domestic violence and sexual assault programs to women with disabilities and

actively discourage any kind of

discrimination in service provided to

persons with disabilities.

These recommendations represent

only a first step toward building a

better service delivery system for

crime victims with disabilities. The

Symposium participants who developed these suggestions are committed

to continuing their work and to

recruiting others to continue the work

that they have begun.

Implications

The victim assistance field has made

great progress since its beginnings in

the early 1970’s. However, there is

much more to achieve in order to

ensure full inclusion and full participation of all crime victims.

Currently, few networks exist to bring

together the various specialists in the

field of victim rights and services and

their parallel colleagues in the disability rights field. Until such networks

are developed, it is likely that strategies for outreach, training, and

coordinated service delivery will be

delayed. Effective networking could

promote participation of people with

disabilities in our criminal justice

process, ensure timely delivery of

appropriate services to crime victims

with disabilities, promote community

awareness of the special needs and

concerns of victims with disabilities,

and help disseminate facts about

victimization in the varied communities of people with disabilities.

Developing such networks will take

the time and energy of many committed individuals and agencies in both

the victim rights and the disability

rights arenas.
14

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

It is clear that policies will not be

changed, service providers will not be

trained, and help will not be provided

without the active involvement of the

constituencies for whom the services

are intended. People with disabilities

must take a leading role in helping to

determine the future of victim rights

and services for themselves, and they

must work in concert with all the

various criminal justice entities to

make that happen.

Leadership and funding will be

needed not only from OVC but also

from other appropriate funding

sources to ensure that our criminal

justice agencies and victim assistance

programs are fully accessible to

people with disabilities and that the

staffs of those programs are appropriately trained to provide quality

services. Given the large numbers of

crime victims with disabilities,

programs will need additional funding

in order to provide the level of services needed. When funding is not

immediately available, program managers will need to be creative in seeking alliances with new partners to help

make service delivery a reality. Lack

of funding should never be an excuse

for excluding any crime victims from

our American system of justice.

Americans with disabilities are a

widely diverse group of people with

varying levels of independence and

needs. The challenge for the future is

to ensure that all people with disabilities become full participants in the

criminal justice system. The National

Council on Disability noted in its

Achieving Independence report that

the “achievement of independence for

people with disabilities is a test of the

very tenets of our democracy. It is a

test we can pass.” As victim advocates, we now know that there is a

potentially huge population of

unserved and under served crime

victims who have the right to the

services that we are committed to

giving to all crime victims:

l The right to protection from

intimidation and harm.

l The right to be informed concerning the criminal justice process.

l The right to counsel.

l The right to reparations.

l The right to preservation of

property and employment.

l The right to due process in

criminal court proceedings.

l The right to be treated with

dignity, compassion, and respect.

While the United States is viewed as

the world leader in civil and disability

rights, crime victims with disabilities

are largely invisible and their legal

rights for serviceCand justiceCgo

even all crime victims with disabilities. Rather, a partnership between

the victim assistance and disability

advocacy fields needs to be built that

fosters mutual respect and sharing of

ideas, knowledge, capabilities, successes, and collaborative efforts in

order to develop strategies to address

the problems. Such a partnership will

strengthen the capability of both

victim and disability advocates in

their efforts to ensure that all crime

victims are afforded fundamental

justice and access to quality, comprehensive services.

The facts are before us. We cannot

turn back now.

For Further Information

For additional information about the

project and products related to Working With Disabled Crime Victims,

contact NOVA or OVC at the following addresses and phone numbers:

Office for Victims of Crime

U.S. Department of Justice

810 7th Street, N.W., 8th Floor

Washington, D.C. 20531

202–307–5983

202–514–6383 fax

Web Site:

http:\www.ojp.usdoj.gov\ovc\

This bulletin was prepared under cooperative

agreement number 97-BF-GX-K022, awarded to

the National Organization for Victim Assistance,

by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of

Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

The findings and conclusions are those of the

author and do not necessarily reflect the official

position or policies of the U.S. Department of

Justice.

The Office for Victims of Crime is a component

of the Office of Justice Programs which also

includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the

Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National

Institute of Justice, and the Office for Juvenile

Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The challenge for

the future is

to ensure that

all people

with disabilities

become full

participants in the

criminal justice system.

unaddressed. Criminal rights are

carefully monitored by the justice and

legal system; the crime victims’ rights

movement is striving to achieve

recognition of similar rights and

services for the victim, including

those with disabilities.

Meeting the needs of crime victims

with disabilities presents the criminal

justice system, including the victim

assistance field, with a great challenge. It will not be accomplished

simply by extending the umbrella of

“victim assistance” to cover more or
15

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

National Organization for Victim

Assistance

1757 Park Road, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20010

202–232–6682

202–462–2255 fax

E-mail: nova@try-nova.org

Web Site: http:\www.try-nova.org

Additional Resources

Following are useful resources. The

list, of course, is not complete, in the

interest of brevity.

Books

Violence and Abuse in the Lives of

People With Disabilities: The End of

Silent Acceptance? Dick Sobsey,

R.N., Ed.D., Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD.

Violence & Disability: An Annotated

Bibliography, Dick Sobsey, Don

Wells, Richard Lucardie, Sheila

Mansell, Paul H. Brookes Publishing

Company, Baltimore, MD.

Caregiver Abuse and Domestic

Violence in the Lives of Women With

Disabilities, Meeting the Needs of

Women With Disabilities: A Blueprint

for Change, a Project of Berkeley

Planning Associates. Marlene F.

Strong and Ann Cupolo Freeman.

510–465–7884 (booklet).

Curricula and Videos

Your Safety, Your Rights, a personal

safety and abuse prevention program

for adults with disabilities and for

service providers. Terri Pease, Ph.D.

and Beverly Frantz, Network of

Victim Assistance, 215–348–5664.

Charting New Waters: Responding to

Violence Against Women With Disabilities, Video and Facilitators’

Guide. Justice Institute of British

Columbia, 604–525–5422.

Together We Can Make a Difference:

A Police Orientation Manual on

Citizens With Disabilities. Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency, Harrisburg, PA.

Police and People With Disabilities.

Law Enforcement Resource Center.

Minneapolis, MN 800–279–8284.

Miscellaneous

San Francisco Police Department’s

“Transition Plan for Police Stations

and the Hall of Justice” (re: Americans With Disabilities Act), contact

Sgt. Michael J. Sullivan, ADA Coordinator, 415–553–1343, 415–558–

2406 (TTY).

Personal Safety Awareness Center

Resource Lending Library Listing of

Materials, Austin Rape Crisis Center,

512– 445–5776 x 210.

National Council on Independent

Living, 2111 Wilson Boulevard, Suite

405, Arlington, VA 22201, 703–525–

3406 (voice), 703–525–3407 (TTY),

to locate the nearest Center for

Independent Living.

ADA Information Line

800-514-0301 (Voice)

800-514-0383 (TDD)

www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm

The U.S. Department of Justice

answers questions about the ADA and

provides free publications by mail and

fax through its ADA Information

Line; publications may also be viewed

or downloaded at its website.

Disability and Business Technical

Assistance Centers (DBTACs)

800-949-4232 (Voice/TTD)

www.icdi.wvu.edu/tech/ada.htm

The National Institute on Disability

and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)

of the U.S. Department of Education

has funded a network of grantees

throughout the nation to provide

information, training, and technical

assistance to agencies and businesses

regarding their responsibilities and

duties under the ADA. Your call to

the above toll-free number will be

routed to the DBTAC in your region.

President’s Committee on Employment of People With Disabilities, List

of Chairpersons, Vice Chairpersons

and Secretaries of Governors’ Committees on Employment of People

With Disabilities, 202–376–6200

(voice)/376–6205 (TDD). The Job

Accommodation Network (JAN) is a

service of the President’s Committee

on Employment of People With

Disabilities, and provides personalized

consulting services by giving callers

detailed accommodation solutions and

answers to specific questions about

the ADA. Call 800–ADA–WORK

(800–232–9675) voice/tty. Computer

Bulletin Board: 800–Dial–JAN, 800–

342–5526). Web Site: http://

janweb.icdi.wvu.edu. The Access

Board provides ADA accessibility

guidelines for new construction and

compliance issues for facilities built

with Federal dollars. Call 202–272–

5434 voice, 202–272–5549 tty, Web

site: http://access-board.gov.

Related Web Sites

www.cavnet.org

www.boystown.org/research/

 abused.html

www.quasar.ualberta.ca/ddc/ddb/

 sobleymansell.html

www.psych-health.com/death.html

www.psych-health.com/tony.html

www.vh.org/Welcome/UIHC/

 UIHCMedDepts/Peds/

 ChildAbuse/DHSAdult.html

www.realtime.net/austinrapecrisis/

 HTML/psac.htm

www.pcepd.gov

www.icdi.wvu.edu/tech/ada.htm
16

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

Marc Gallucci, Esq., Center for Disability Rights, Victims of Crime Coalition of

Connecticut, New Haven, CT

Wilson Hulley, President’s Committee on

Employment of People With Disabilities,

Washington, D.C.

Kerry A. Klockner, Washington Coalition of

Citizens with disABILITIES, Seattle, WA

Pat Laird, Administration on Developmental Disabilities, U.S. Dept. of Health/

Human Services, Washington, D.C.

Morna Murray, Esq., VALOR, Alexandria, VA

Kim Musheno, The Arc, Washington, D.C.

Brooke O’Kelly, The RiteAway Team,

Beverly Hills, CA

Debbie O’Neill, Ventura County District

Attorney’s Office Victim Services Unit,

Ventura, CA

Joan Petersilia, Ph.D., University of

California, Irvine, Santa Barbara, CA

Barbara Ransom, Public Interest Law

Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP),

Philadelphia, PA

Dan Rosenblatt, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Alexandria, VA

Tom Satterly, Riverview, FL

Jane Nady Sigmon, Ph.D., American

Prosecutors’ Research Institute, Alexandria, VA

Marilyn Smith, Abused Deaf Women’s

Advocacy Services, Seattle, WA

NCJ 172838

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office for Victims of Crime

Washington, D.C. 20531

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use $300

OVC Bulletin

Working with Victims of Crime with Disabilities

BULK RATE

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

DOJ/OVC

Permit No. G-91

Richard Sobsey, Ph.D., Developmental

Disabilities Center. University of Alberta,

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Lisa Sonneborn, Institute on Disabilities/

UAP, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

Dan Sorensen, Criminal Justice Task

Force for Persons With Developmental

Disabilities, Sacramento, CA

Linda Spies, Denver, CO

Sergeant Michael J. Sullivan, ADA

Coordinator, San Francisco Police

Department, San Francisco, CA

Patricia M. Sullivan, Ph.D., Center for

Abused Children with Disabilities, Boys

Town National Research Hospital,

Omaha, NE

Sean Sweeney, National Institute on

Disability & Rehabilitation Research, U.S.

Dept. of Education, Washington, D.C.

Christine Thompson, Crime Victim

Initiative, Hennepin County Attorney’s

Office, Minneapolis, MN

Richard Titus, Ph.D, National Institute

of Justice, Washington, D.C.

Reginald F. Wells, Ph.D., Administration

on Developmental Disabilities, U.S.

Dept. of Health/Human Services,

Washington, D.C.

Jody Wildy, D.C. Center for Independent

Living, Washington, D.C.

Mary Ellen Young, Ph.D., Center for

Research on Women With Disabilities,

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX

Symposium Participants

(Advisors)

OVC and NOVA thank the following

advisors who attended the 2-day Symposium, and to many others who were

unable to attend, but lent their information and support.

Diane Alexander, National Victim

Center, Arlington, VA

Nora J. Baladerian, Ph.D., Spectrum

Institute, Disability, Abuse & Personal

Rights Project, Culver City, CA

Diane Bryen, Institute on Disabilities/

UAP, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

Barbara Burkhardt, Office of the

Attorney General, Division of Victim

Services, Tallahassee, FL

Charlotte Clarke, Victim/Witness

Assistance Unit, U.S. Attorney’s Office,

Washington, D.C.

Marcie Davis, Crisis Response of Santa

Fe, Santa Fe, NM

Dan Eddy, National Association of

Crime Victim Compensation Boards,

Alexandria, VA

Sharon D’Eusanio, Division of Victim

Services, Office of the Attorney General,

Boca Raton, FL

Barbara Waxman Fiduccia, Center for

Women Policy Studies, Cupertino, CA

Beverly L. Frantz, Network of Victim

Assistance, Sellersville, PA