Victimization Rates Greater for Disabled

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Point List
(Autism Society Report, Invisible Victims)

• Victimization rates for the disabled are several times higher than for the general population.
  
• Crimes against the disabled are vastly under reported.
  
• For reported crimes, police follow-up and conviction rates are typically low.
  
• Sentences are usually light, even for sexual assaults.
  
• Most disabled individuals will be abused or sexually assaulted in their lifetimes.
  
• Conviction rates for crimes against the disabled are as low as 5%.

Personal Experience

I suffered multiple mental breakdowns, and have been hospitalized more than once for anxiety and depression. School staff were usually hesitant to do anything about my torment. Sometimes they deliberately refused to do anything about it, even contributing to my torment. I had a few cases where teachers deliberately violated my IEP without disciplinary action.

Bullying is still an extremely sensitive issue for me. My anxiety and depression makes work all but impossible. I've never had any sort of lasting friendship. It's an impossibly massive frustration for me.

Discussion

• Have you ever found the local schools to be 'deficient' in their handling of abuse?
  
• If you had an IEP, were teachers ever flagrant in violating it?
  
• Have you developed problems with anxiety and depression as a result of peer abuse?
  
• Have you had any negative experiences with law enforcement, along the lines of what was described above?

I didn't have an IEP, so I don't know on that end. As I constantly complain about, the schools didn't care because I didn't make much trouble.
So far as the schools being deficient about dealing with my torment, I don't think I verbalized it well enough for them to have any idea how bad it was. They didn't understand that when I said that somebody was my friend, I meant that they considered me remotely human. They didn't understand that I couldn't tell them what I was being called when I was being made fun of, because just my name was a curse to everyone else. (Edit: not just to "everyone else." I don't go by the same name I did then. I actually spent my entire childhood trying to change my name, trying to be someone else. It annoyed a lot of people. There are a lot of nicknames for Margaret. I've used pretty much all of them.)
I developed a lot more than depression and anxiety.

I've actually not had issues with law enforcement. (Unless you count one horrible high school security officer.) I think I seem pathetic enough that cops feel bad for me or something.

I'm tired of repeating my story, but school is only the beginning CD. I'm 50 and still being bullied and abused and can get assistance from no one, not even my Congressman. If you're not in a wheelchair, don't have a speech impediment or an obvious mental deficiency or large visible mutations, the Americans With Disabilities Act doesn't apply to you and there's nothing wrong with you except that you're a whiny p**y. Get over yourself. Autistics magically outgrow their handicap when they turn 18, haven't you heard? NOBODY GIVES A RAT'S @SS. Get used to it.

Sorry, nothing personal, its just the way things are.

A few years back, I read a novel called A Time for Justice which was written by an anonymous author. The novel is a 500 page indictment of the criminal justice system in the UK. One incident involves an elderly, visually-impaired woman who had her pension stolen from her by a gang of thugs. The woman had little or no chance of identifying these people in an identity parade and even if she did identify them the defence would have been able to question her evidence on medical grounds. As a result, the investigation into the theft was dropped.

Grr, the a**hole that raped my physically disabled friend got off with a slap on the wrist. She has some mental issues from the same TBI from being shaken as a baby that left her wheelchair-bound and those mental issues were used against her in court.

Ugh, and I was in a good mood before I read that post...

That's the way things are. Things change. They don't have to stay this way forever, you know. Maybe I'm idealistic (okay, no "maybe"), but this sort of change isn't completely unknown.

The question is how do we change it? Does someone need to drop a massive class-action lawsuit against the government to make it happen, or is it a matter of protests and petitions?

Of course you're idealistic - you're 26, you're supposed to be idealistic. I'm 50. Things will change, eventually, sure they will. But I'll be dead by then, so it isn't going to change things for me.

I don't agree with many of Ringer's political views, but he deserves much credit for this IMO. Excluding SOME educators and those in the mental health field, he is one of the few neurotypicals (<assumption ) who seems to be aware of the victimization people with AS/NLD face at these glorified state prisons we call public schools.

Needless to say (and to be fair)....bullying is not just something those of us with AS/NLD experience. Nor is it restricted to the public school system or even childhood itself. Nonetheless, I think there's every reason to believe many, if not all, Aspies/NLD-ers within the public school system experience the very worst extremes of it:


By Robert Ringer


Every school bully leaves a victim. Question: Is it really the bullied kid's responsibility to suffer quietly? Was that the obligation of the seventh-grade victim described below?



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I was in the 7th grade in a public high school. We are in gym class, and several 7th grade classes take gym together. We finish our gym class and are told to take a shower before the next class. I'm one of the smallest guys in the class, but this day I wouldn't become the victim, because they choose someone else. Several guys grab this other person, about my size, and place him in the wire cage they keep sports equipment in. He is naked, of course, heading to take his shower. They then proceed to urinate on him in front of the rest of the guys. You don't even want to know about the laughter. I can't even imagine the emotional scars that he deals with today. I consider myself lucky that day, but that poor bastard … if I ever heard he picked up a gun and killed those S.O.B.s, I would cheer him on. - E.A.
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It's hard to imagine that the incident E.A. describes didn't forever damage the victim's self-esteem and self-confidence. Perhaps he died at a young age ... or maybe he's just lived a life of misery all these years.


Of course, he might have been one of those kids who had the tools to rise above such humiliation, find a way to repair his bruised and battered ego, and go on to lead a successful, happy adult life. Unlikely … but possible, I guess.

Frankly, however, I'm not interested in whether or not he had the inner strength to get beyond such a sadistic bullying incident. Regardless of his coping "tools," I believe all the school bullies who participated in that savage attack not only should have been expelled from school, but should have had criminal charges filed against them. Instead, they almost certainly continued on their merry way as part of the "in crowd" throughout their school years - and, to this day, probably still laugh about the incident.

Now, here's the "X" factor that people are missing when they say it's the duty of a bullied kid to tough it out and succeed in spite of all the taunting, teasing, and degradation he experiences: What if the victim simply is not equipped to handle the abuse dished out by the student criminals who target him?

What if the child has a condition that makes it all but impossible to fend for himself? What if he has Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) or a "nonverbal learning disorder" (NLD)? Or what if he simply has severe emotional problems, as a result of genetics, an abusive home environment, or any one of a number of other causes?

Now hear this: These kids are the prime targets of the student goons (and malevolent teachers) who thrive on subjecting others to pain. Yet, in my considerable experience, no one - including, and especially, so-called educators - seems to give such handicaps a thought.

But the parents of millions of such children - repeat, millions - see the deteriorating results each and every day when their children come home from the torture chamber euphemistically referred to as "school" … depressed, angry, withdrawn, and worse. It is a very sad, very frustrating, and very ugly way of life.

In a perfect world, every child who is bullied would have what it takes to rise above the physical and verbal abuse, humiliation, and loneliness to which they are subjected. But, as one reader put it:



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I often see this attitude of, 'Well, I did it … why can't others?' However, we're not all created the same, and the circumstances of our lives are not the same. I admire people who do overcome difficult obstacles, but often what's missing is a lack of compassion or empathy for those who can't. - K.A.
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The coup de grace is that if the bullied child ever gets up the nerve to tell on his tormentor, two things are almost sure to happen.

First, the teacher or administrator handling the matter puts the bully on an even footing with his victim. The attitude is: "Now, boys, how can we work this out?" Which, of course, is preposterous and only emboldens the school bully. In every case of bullying in the history of Planet Earth, everyone knows who the bully is and who the victim is. It's never a matter of two relatively equal kids needing to "work out their differences."

The second thing that happens is that the bullied child will immediately be labeled a "snitch" - and snitching, in all schools, is taboo. There is an unwritten rule that you don't snitch - no matter what someone does to you. If you get urinated on, so be it. But telling on the urinators makes you a scoundrel.

The implication is that it is your moral obligation to keep quiet about it when someone batters and humiliates you. If you snitch, there is no turning back. It makes you a permanent outcast with virtually the entire student body - even though you are the victim.

Unfortunately, school officials are too stupid, lazy, and apathetic to do anything about the nonstop sadistic bullying of students who, for one reason or another, are not equipped to defend themselves - and, in many cases, not equipped to get their lives on track as they grow into adulthood. Little do they realize that they may be helping to create the next Cho, and that he may be paying them a visit in the near future to set some things straight that he's pretty angry about.

Hopeless situation? Yes, it is - if schools are allowed to continue with business as usual. Drastic situations call for drastic solutions. In Installment VIII, I'll offer some extreme measures that I think need to be taken if schools are to lessen their chances of producing more Chos - and, even more important, producing more millions of scarred children who are left to quietly suffer.

Previous - Part VI, Quiet Suffering: The Outcasts

Next - Part VIII, Our Automaton Psyches: Don't Rock the Boat




Go to top of "Prime Targets: The School Bully"

It's a matter of another Civil Rights movement, I'm afraid. But that has already happened once, so we know it's possible.

All previous civil rights movements had one thing in common: they were unified by some geographic force. Whether it was discrimination itself banding them into similar geographic locations, or interests they shared as a group, they had some semblance of unity binding them together.

How do we achieve that with the disabled? How do we get to the same level of organization that has driven every past civil rights movement in this nation? As it stands now, it seems we're far too scattered to do anything effective.

What about the flip side of the coin. What if the person that committed the very same crime was mentally disabled? Because, I have been writing to someone (e.g. a penpal) for the past year, where I had no knowledge of this. Right now, he's in jail for sexual assualt. The thing I want to know is, he should be held accountable, but he has a very low IQ, borderline ret*d. He never got any help 12 years ago, when he did this sex crime, to one of his family members. I feel real conflicted here, because of that. I am the first to tell you, I never condone sex crimes, but it's not that clear cut. What should I do? Because I've been telling him to stop with the porn and such, but that's how he got caught. I just want him to get help!

I didn't have an IEP but I did have a 504 Plan and yes not all teachers stuck to it, and my parents needed to hire a lawyer to obtain it in the first place because the school was unwilling to provide accommodations.

I definitely suffered severe anxiety and depression as a result of peer abuse.

All but one of my experiences with law enforcement have been positive ones - in general I have found police officers to be honest, helpful, and fair. But I am a very young-looking female, so I suspect that may have something to do with the kind treatment I've received. (Even when I was in jail I noticed those in charge were much nicer to me than the other prisoners...)

I hope your experience wasn't too terrible, and I'm sorry that you were in jail. I think those that have disabilities in jail needs to be addressed a lot more, because you really can't treat them the same way as everyone else.

I would have to go with the report I cited, in that he shouldn't be excluded from responsibility, but care should be taken during investigation and trial to ensure he has the same rights as everyone else. Motive should also be a driving factor behind the decision, and the sentence.

As for help, that's another big issue that should be addressed, but sadly hasn't. We definitely don't have a surplus of compassion in this society, although there is more than enough surplus of violence and hatred it seems...


I'm beginning to think a class-action lawsuit is in order. I'm sure there are thousands of Aspies in my state alone, many of them with IEPs, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time to tack up all the violations. The question is, who the heck would you sue over it?

It actually wasn't so bad - just rather boring. I was 19 at the time and looked 14-15 and so they tended to treat me like a child, which in jail is a good thing But I was also very upfront about accommodations I would need - I'm hypoglycemic, so I needed access to fruit at all times, and they had no problem providing it. I was a surprised because they just took my word for it, I expected them to refuse until they could contact my doctor.