VIOLENT SEX CRIMES  

• Crimes against people with disabilities are often extremely violent and calculated to injure, control, and humiliate the victim (Tyiska, 1998), but agencies serving abused women have usually included provisions for women with disabilities only as an afterthought, if at all (Mauro, 1996).     

SEXUAL ABUSE OF THE DEAF 

• One study of abused children found that more than half (53.4 percent) of deaf girls had been sexually abused (Elder, 1993). 
• Reports exist of 911 operators hanging up on TTY calls from deaf women and of prosecutors rejecting a cognitively disabled woman as a credible witness because she has trouble communicating on the witness stand while she is expected to comply with standard procedures for testimony (Berkeley Planning Associates, 1997).  
• The needs of deaf women, for example, include victim counseling that is sensitive to deaf culture issues and appropriate communication techniques (Merkin and Smith, 1995).      

SEXUAL ABUSE OF HOMELESS WOMEN 

• The prevalence of childhood abuse is substantially higher among homeless women with severe mental illness than among homeless women in general; experience of abuse is related to increased suicidality and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for some women (Davies-Netzley, 1996).  

INSTIUTIONALIZED WOMEN TWICE AS LIKELY TO BE VICTIMIZED

• Sexual crimes committed in the community are 12 to 15 times more likely to be reported as are those committed in institutional settings (Sobsey, 1994).   
• Virtually half (48.1 percent) of the perpetrators of sexual abuse against women with disabilities gained access to their victims through disability services (Sobsey, 1994). 
• Caregivers commit at least 25 percent of all crimes against disabled women (Berkeley Planning Associates, 1997).
• At least 90 percent of abuse of disabled women does not result in any treatment (Baladerian, 1991), particularly for women who are, or have been, institutionalized and therefore are economically deprived, lack opportunity for self-determination, are deemed to have little credibility, must depend on others to meet their needs, have limited access to resources, and are taught to be compliant (Crossmaker, 1991).  

 

NO SAFETY UNDER STATE CARE

• A study of 100 psychiatric inpatients found that 81 percent had been physically or sexually assaulted during their lifetimes (Jacobson and Richardson, 1987). 
• Another study of the victimization history of 93 adult women who were psychiatric emergency room patients found that 53 percent reported childhood sexual abuse and 42 percent reported physical abuse. 
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the largest category of disability caused by sexual violence against women (Murphy, 1995). 
• Psychiatric technicians often place a woman spread-eagled, in four point restraints, or put her in seclusion while she is receiving psychiatric care.
• This is a traumatic situation for most women, but particularly for survivors of abuse, who then re-experience the trauma of the original abuse.
• Restraint and seclusion usually intensify out-of-control or assaultive behavior and throw survivors into a continuing destructive cycle of trauma and response (Caras, 1997).