Excerpt from PRNewswire: (click for entire article)
he first national study on crime against persons with disabilities was released today by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Office of Justice Programs. In 2007 persons age 12 or older with disabilities experienced about 716,000 nonfatal violent crimes, including rape or sexual assault (47,000), robbery (79,000), aggravated assaults (114,000) and simple assaults (476,000). They also experienced about 2.3 million property crimes during the year.
Based on interviews for the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the study identified six types of disabilities among persons who experienced criminal victimization: sensory, physical, cognitive functioning, self-care, go-outside-the-home and employment. A disability was defined as a long-standing (six months or more) sensory, physical, mental or emotional condition that makes it difficult for a person to perform daily living activities.
To compare victimization of persons with and without disabilities, the study generated age-adjusted rates for persons with disabilities, who typically are older than persons without disabilities. The age-adjusted rate of nonfatal violent crimes against persons with disabilities was 1.5 times higher than the rate for those without disabilities (32 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older compared to 21 per 1,000).
Examining specific age groups, the risk of violence was higher for young and middle-age persons with a disability than those of similar age groups without disabilities. Persons age 12 to 19 and those age 35 to 49 with a disability experienced violence at nearly twice the rate as persons of the same age groups without a disability. The rate of violence did not differ by disability status for persons age 50 or older. Persons age 65 or older, with or without a disability, had the lowest rates of violent crime.
The age-adjusted rate of violent crime against females with a disability (35 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older) was almost twice the rate for females without a disability (19 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older). Males with a disability also experienced higher age-adjusted rates of violence than males without a disability (30 per 1,000 compared to 24 per 1,000).
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