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"Working with Victims with Disabilities

Implications
One of the sections of the greater document: "Working with Victims with Disabilities, an OVC Bulletin", by Cheryl Guidry Tyiska, NOVA

The victim assistance field has made great progress since its beginnings in the early 1970's. However, there is much more to achieve in order to ensure full inclusion and full participation of all crime victims.

Currently, few networks exist to bring together the various specialists in the field of victim rights and services and their parallel colleagues in the disability rights field. Until such networks are developed, it is likely that strategies for outreach, training, and coordinated service delivery will be delayed. Effective networking could promote participation of people with disabilities in our criminal justice process, ensure timely delivery of appropriate services to crime victims with disabilities, promote community awareness of the special needs and concerns of victims with disabilities, and help disseminate facts about victimization in the varied communities of people with disabilities. Developing such networks will take the time and energy of many committed individuals and agencies in both the victim rights and the disability rights arenas. It is clear that policies will not be changed, service providers will not be trained, and help will not be provided without the active involvement of the constituencies for whom the services are intended. People with disabilities must take a leading role in helping to determine the future of victim rights and services for themselves, and they must work in concert with all the various criminal justice entities to make that happen.

Leadership and funding will be needed not only from OVC but also from other appropriate funding sources to ensure that our criminal justice agencies and victim assistance programs are fully accessible to people with disabilities and that the staffs of those programs are appropriately trained to provide quality services. Given the large numbers of crime victims with disabilities, programs will need additional funding in order to provide the level of services needed. When funding is not immediately available, program managers will need to be creative in seeking alliances with new partners to help make service delivery a reality. Lack of funding should never be an excuse for excluding any crime victims from our American system of justice.

Americans with disabilities are a widely diverse group of people with varying levels of independence and needs. The challenge for the future is to ensure that all people with disabilities become full participants in the criminal justice system. The National Council on Disability noted in its Achieving Independence report that the "achievement of independence for people with disabilities is a test of the very tenets of our democracy. It is a test we can pass." As victim advocates, we now know that there is a potentially huge population of un-served and under served crime victims who have the right to the services that we are committed to giving to all crime victims:

The right to protection from intimidation and harm.

• The right to be informed concerning the criminal justice process

• The right to counsel

• The right to reparations

• The right to preservation of property and employment

• The right to due process in criminal court proceedings

• The right to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect

The challenge for the future is to ensure that all people with disabilities become full participants in the criminal justice system.

Meeting the needs of crime victims with disabilities presents the criminal justice system, including the victim assistance field, with a great challenge. It will not be accomplished simply by extending the umbrella of "victim assistance" to cover more or even all crime victims with disabilities. Rather, a partnership between the victim assistance and disability advocacy fields needs to be built that fosters mutual respect and sharing of ideas, knowledge, capabilities, successes, and collaborative efforts in order to develop strategies to address the problems. Such a partnership will strengthen the capability of both victim and disability advocates in their efforts to ensure that all crime victims are afforded fundamental justice and access to quality, comprehensive services.

The facts are before us. We cannot turn back now.

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