Disability: Missing from the Conversation of Violence

Abstract

The data on violence against disabled people are scarce. The data on prevalence that does exist is staggering, however: disabled people make up one third to one half of all people killed by law enforcement and experience twice the rate of violence that others do. To study the relationships among ableism, violence, and disability as an intersectional identity, we use a DisCrit theoretical framework to conduct a selective review of three reports: a Bureau of Justice Statistics (2017) report on violence and disability, a Ruderman Foundation white paper on media coverage of police violence and disability (Perry and Carter-Long), and a report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) investigating the mass incarceration of people with disabilities in the United States (Vallas). The authors examine ways the available data tell a particular story about disability and violence and identify crucial missing conversations. The findings from these analyses suggest that to combat ableism and the violence it causes, oppressive systems must be named, the voices of disabled individuals must be included, and data on disability must be more systematically gathered in all national efforts related to violence and violence prevention. We also present the implications of this work for social policy, psychologists, and larger contributions to the literature on victimization.