Crimes Against Persons with Disabilities

Extent and Nature of the Problem

Most of the studies that have been conducted have examined the experiences of small samples of people with specific types of disability. Many have focused on victimization of people with developmental disabilities. Developmental disabilities are severe, chronic mental or physical impairments, manifested by age twenty-two and expected to last indefinitely, that result in substantial functional limitations in three or more major life activities, such as self-care, learning, capacity for independent living, and economic self-sufficiency.

A majority of people in the United States with developmental disabilities have intellectual impairments such as mental retardation. One study often cited (Sobsey et al. 1995) that incorporated estimates based upon a review of the existing literature estimated that people with developmental disabilities were four to ten times more vulnerable to crime victimization than people without disabilities. A 1992 Australian survey (Wilson and Brewer) was administered to a sample of people with cognitive disabilities using a questionnaire modified from the Australian Victims of Crime survey. The study found that for violent crimes, the vulnerability of people with disabilities ranged from about three times higher for assault to thirteen times higher for robbery.

At least one study (Hard 1986) has found that people with intellectual disabilities are also subject to repeat victimization, often at the hands of care providers or family members. In this study, 83 percent of the women in the sample reported being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes; of these, nearly half had been sexually assaulted ten or more times. And a 1993 study (Crosse et al.) found that children with disabilities were 2.1 times as likely to endure criminal physical abuse and 1.8 times as likely to experience sexual abuse as children without disabilities.

In a study of sexual assaults of people with disabilities (Sobsey and Doe 1991), almost half of the offenders had a relationship with the victims that appeared to be specifically related to their disability—most often that of a service provider, such as a personal care attendant, psychiatrist, or residential care staff person.

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