Writing in the [UK] Independent, columnist Deborah Orr re-examines the case of Brent Martin, a young man who had been striving to manage his learning disabilities and live on his own when he was brutally murdered last summer.

What is the worst thing about this abhorrent crime against a vulnerable person? The worst thing is that it is by no means the most horrific recent example of escalating violence against people with disabilities. Over the last couple of years, a slew of vicious and often fatal crimes against people with physical or mental disadvantages have come to trial. Sometimes, the ordeals of victims went on for many months before they died.

… Disability Now investigated 50 crimes against disabled people in 2006 and 2007, 14 resulting in death, many others in serious injury, and a substantial number involving attacks on people in wheelchairs or using mobility scooters, and established that only two of them had been treated as hate crimes. The magazine is now campaigning for hate crimes against disabled people to be recognised as such.

There remains a school of thought which scoffs at the idea that attacks inspired by a particular prejudice should be treated as especially heinous. The argument is that murder or violence is murder or violence, whatever sets it off. This is not a sensible view. It is really important to highlight particular prejudices as unacceptable triggers for crimes, as this concentrates public outrage and raises wider awareness of specific dangers.

… Survey after survey confirms that the disabled are massively more likely to be assaulted than their typically-abled peers. In 2002 the crime prevention organisation, Nacro, found that disabled people are four times as likely to be violently attacked, and twice as likely to be burgled. A more recent report by the cerebral palsy charity Scope found that 47 per cent of disabled people had either experienced physical abuse or witnessed the physical abuse of a disabled friend.

Practical counter-measures are needed when such additional stresses are being perpetrated against already vulnerable people in such a widespread manner. The advances that have been made towards the full participation of disabled people in everyday life are still fragile, and they need to be defended. A concentrated effort to reduce the barbaric lack of stigma around such a cowardly form of criminality is absolutely essential.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 5:05 am and is filed under abuse, criminal justice, intellectual/developmental disabilities, law, learning disabilities, NOT2BEMISSED, violence, wheelchair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.