Crimes Against People with Disabilities: A brand new blog and A Place to Tell It Like It Is
In 2002 Professor Mark Sherry, then at the University of California, published an intriguing article about the grievous underreporting of hate crimes against people with disabilities in the United States.
The most important dimension of this piece resides in the FBI’s
suggestion that hate crimes against the disabled are statistically
negligible. The findings of an accompanying study by the UC Berkeley’s
program in disability studies suggest that police and law enforcement
officials are often reluctant to categorize crimes against people with
disabilities as hate crimes because officers aren’t sufficiently
trained to identify biased based crimes. Additionally, it is easier to
classify a crime as simple assault.
Alas, not much has changed in the six years since this article was
published even though disability rights advocates have continued to
point out the seriousness of this underreporting problem.
The aim of this blog is to give people with disabilities and their
fellow advocates a place to publicly record narratives of abuse against
PWDs. These narratives might be first person accounts or associated
stories drawn from the news media or the internet. They might be links
to blogs or links to announcements concerning public policy and law
enforcement initiatives aimed at addressing these problems. Other posts
might include articles or bibliographies about these issues.
Above all
else it’s safe to say that the gathering of this information will be
timely.
Cross-posted on Planet of the Blind
Recent Comments