Project Censored Updates

The epidemic of crime and violence against people with disabilities will not be adequately addressed if it remains largely unknown. The media must educate the public about this problem as it has done about child abuse, elder abuse, and domestic violence. Crime and violence against people with disabilities is most likely the largest, measured by the number of violent crimes, among these islands of violence in our society.

Additional evidence continues to be uncovered since the publication of "The Invisible Victims." A major epidemiological study of more than 40,000 school children found that the rate of violence against children with disabilities was 3.44 times greater than against children without disabilities and 5 to 7 times higher for some categories of children with disabilities. Dick Sobsey is studying homicides against people with developmental disabilities and is finding a pattern of sentencing discrimination with these murderers getting substantially lesser sentences. Several studies report very high rates (8.5 to over 20 times higher) of violent crime against people with psychiatric disabilities.

The Governor of California has established the first permanent comprehensive program that addresses crime and violence against people with disabilities, The Crime Victims with Disabilities Initiative. The Attorney General of California is committed to developing a training package on how to investigate and prosecute crimes against people with disabilities, how to interview the victims, and how to prepare for the related trials. Important work in this area is going on in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, and many other states.

The press and media continue to largely ignore this issue. I know of only three significant stories on this issue over the last ten years. Most reports describe isolated crimes with no hint that there is a large, serious, and persistent pattern of violence directed against people with disabilities.