2013 Violent Crime Rates against People with Disabilities more than twice that for Non-disabled

A report released by the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) on 5/21/15 states that:

“VIOLENT CRIME RATE IN 2013 AGAINST PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES WAS MORE THAN DOUBLE THE AGE-ADJUSTED RATE FOR PERSONS WITHOUT DISABILITIES”

Here are excerpts from the report:

These findings are based on BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which classifies disabilities according to six limitations: hearing, vision, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care and independent living.

• Persons with cognitive disabilities experienced the highest rate of violent crime (67 per 1,000) among all disability types measured, similar to previous years.
• Serious violent crime—rape or sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault—accounted for a greater percentage of all violent crime against persons with disabilities (39 percent) than persons without disabilities (29 percent). Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of violent crime victims with disabilities believed they were targeted due to their disability.
• About 51 percent of violent crime against persons with disabilities involved victims with multiple disability types in 2013.
• Nearly half (48 percent) of violent crime against persons with disabilities was reported to police in 2013, similar to that reported for persons without disabilities (44 percent). The reasons persons with disabilities did not report the crime to police were because they dealt with it in another way (44 percent), they believed it was not important enough (21 percent), they believed police wouldn’t help (19 percent) or other reasons (38 percent).
• Nonpolice victim services agencies served more violent crime victims with disabilities (12 percent) than violent crime victims without disabilities (8 percent) in 2013.