Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality by Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer

Author:Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer [Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medical, Public Policy, Health Policy, Disability, Public Affairs & Administration, Political Science, History, Law, General
ISBN: 9781589013100
Google: AyXVc0mLAW0C
Goodreads: 18954528
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Published: 2003-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

VIOLENCE AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

One of the more recent issues that has made its way onto the policy agenda deals with violence against persons with disabilities, some of which has been linked to the growing problem of hate crimes (or bias crimes, as they also are known). One of the galvanizing events that ignited concern around the country was the highly publicized Glen Ridge case in New Jersey in March 1989. A seventeen-year-old woman with an IQ of 49 and a second grader’s performance skills was lured into a basement recreation room by a group of high school senior athletes. They promised her that if she accompanied them, they would arrange a date for her with another boy she idolized. Instead, they repeatedly raped her with a broomstick, a baseball bat, and another stick while their friends cheered; no one intervened. The following day, a group of thirty boys tried to get her to go back to the basement with them, and she refused.

The gang rape highlighted what many advocates considered stereotypical treatment of disabled persons by law enforcement agencies and a criminal justice system that refuses to take such attacks seriously. Bernard Lefkowitz, who has written one of the most moving books about the incident, found it difficult to understand why the Glen Ridge community was so supportive of the young men—raising $30,000 to defray their legal bills and referring to the young woman as a slut. The superintendent of schools, a woman, urged the school to “stand by our boys.”73

The defense attorneys argued that the young woman had provoked and enjoyed the assault; prosecutor Robert Laurino maintained that the nature of her disability did not allow her to give informed consent. The press noted that the victim previously had consensual sexual relations and that she had willingly followed the young men to the basement room. Witnesses for the prosecution, however, pointed out that such behavior, including a desire to please and comply, often is part of the training and treatment of mentally retarded people, making them more vulnerable. In this case, the victim had been taunted and manipulated by her classmates for more than a decade. Finally an athlete who had heard about what had taken place told a teacher what he knew; at his graduation ceremony a few weeks later, the audience shouted that he was a snitch for breaking the code of silence among his athletic clique. Many of the students wore yellow ribbons at the event, saying they were in memory of the four young men who had been arrested and were not allowed to attend the graduation ceremony. As Lefkowitz sees it, “This was their way of recognizing these young men and proclaiming their loyalty to them.”74

In March 1993, three of the defendants were convicted of sexual assault and conspiracy, and a fourth was convicted of conspiracy. All four went free while the convictions were appealed to the New Jersey appellate court in 1997, which overturned a part of the convictions on the ground that there was insufficient evidence of coercion.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.