Now What?

I have heard the question “Now What?” several times since the National Public Radio series Abused and Betrayed aired in January. The realities and statistics of abuse and crimes perpetrated against people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is undoubtedly alarming as it is at epidemic levels. For many years we have heard that people with IDD are victimized at rates 4 to 10 times greater than the general population but when Joe Shapiro and the NPR investigative team asked for data specific to sex crimes against people with intellectual and developmental disabilities the findings were unspeakably heart breaking. Erika Herrell, a statistician from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, found that people with IDD are sexually assaulted “more than seven times higher than the rate for persons with no disabilities”. How does one even begin to understand the magnitude of this problem let alone what to do about it? The answer is… there is no easy answer, there is no one size fits all answer.

First, we have to recognize that this sexual violence is real and it is scary and for the most part people are afraid to talk about it. As the NPR story points out those of us that work or advocate in this area of criminal justice are sadly not surprised by the findings from the Justice Bureau because it has long been an “open secret”. It is WAY past time to remove the secret part and push as hard as we can as a society to answer the question of “Now What?”. We know the numbers, we know that sexual assaults against people with IDD are under reported and under prosecuted and we know there are very complex reasons why. We also know SOMETHING has to be done! Addressing sexual violence against people with IDD requires, without a doubt, a multifaceted, multipronged approach at every level from prevention of the crime to conviction of the perpetrator.

One area of policy we have been working on for many years is the need to increase vertical prosecution in these cases. This legislative year The Arc/UCP CA Collaboration is sponsoring a bill, AB 2359 Sexual Assault Crimes Against Intellectual and Developmentally Disabled Victims introduced by Assembly Member Brian Maienschein that would incentivize, through a grant program, up to 11 District Attorney Offices throughout the state to strengthen existing or develop new vertical prosecution units within their office. Vertical prosecution is the process of assigning a single prosecutor to the case from the day the case is filed through the sentencing hearing. This prosecution method is well recognized as a victim-centered approach that has shown improved outcomes in other areas such as domestic violence, elder abuse and child abuse. There are several DA offices throughout the state the recognize the value of this method of prosecution and would like to do it but simply don’t have the resources. This bill would help by allocating those resources to the DA offices. Due to some changes in the bill we only had a week between it being amended and the date it will be heard by the Assembly Public Safety Committee. We are working hard to get the bill out of the policy committee and will be reaching out to all of you for advocacy efforts as we go through the process. It is time for our community to take a stand and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH and hit these issues head on. We can’t let “limited resources” be the excuse we don’t do SOMETHING! Be on the lookout for updates and advocacy requests as we begin trying to answer “NOW WHAT?”