Promising Practices for Serving Crime Victims With Disabilities Toolkit

• NCJ Number: 223966
• Date Published: October 2008
• Length: 7 pages
• Agencies: OVC
• Publication Type: Handbook

Annotation

This toolkit identifies and addresses the issues and obstacles encountered by people with disabilities who have been victimized or abused.

Abstract

Despite a high rate of crime against people with disabilities, many victim assistance agencies report that they rarely serve persons from this population. There are many potential reasons for this problem, such as some people with disabilities, their caregivers, and their families do not report crimes or access victim services due to their unfamiliarity with the agencies that can help them, some are intimidated by the paperwork or processes involved in reporting a crime, many fear the consequences of publicizing the incident, and some simply don't understand or recognize that what they had experienced was an actual crime. In addition to the obstacles faced by victims with disabilities, law enforcement officials and victim service professionals many have limited experience in serving crime victims with disabilities. Functioning as guide for organizations seeking to improve their capacity to respond to crime victims with disabilities, this toolkit sets forth to identify these issues and obstacles encountered by people with disabilities who have been victimized and abused. The guide entails the keys to collaboration, conducting a needs assessment, making a plan, implementing the plan, listening to the community, and a plan for sustainability.