As with advocacy for elder victims, advocates can be leaders in their communities for improving the criminal justice system’s response to sexual assault perpetrated against victims with disabilities.

• Criminal justice system professionals, including law enforcement and prosecution, often lack any specific training on investigating and prosecuting crimes committed against persons with disabilities. This often leads to law enforcement/prosecution decisions not to pursue cases believing they have insufficient evidence to proceed when, in fact, the evidence just needs to be evaluated and/or presented differently. The fact that a sexual assault victim has a disability can lead law enforcement and prosecutors to presume that the victim lacked the ability to consent or is incompetent to testify. Not all persons with disabilities are incapable of consenting to sexual conduct and not all persons with disabilities are legally incompetent to testify. Either of these presumptions has a devastating impact on whether a criminal case will be successful. Advocates can help law enforcement and prosecutors understand this so that they will evaluate their cases absent these presumptions.
• Advocates should encourage law enforcement and prosecutors to take an expansive view of what accommodations the criminal justice system can make so that each victim with a disability who chooses to navigate the criminal justice system can meaningfully participate in the process. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination in services, programs, and activities provided by State and local governmental agencies. This includes navigating the criminal justice system. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that “within the limits of practicability, a State must afford to all individuals a meaningful opportunity to be heard in its courts.”¹ Of course, what is “practicable” and what makes the process accessible for each individual is unique to each case. Advocates can help criminal justice professionals and victims have productive conversations to explore how each process can be made accessible. Some examples include:
  
  • Avoiding interviews or testimony during times of day that are particularly difficult for a victim to concentrate due to a condition or medication regimen
  • Carefully considering the physical space in which interviews take place. For example, the typical office conference room chair may be painful to sit in for a long period of time for a victim with a physical disability. For a victim with a disability that creates auditory sensitivities (which can be the case with Autism), conducting interviews in a room that does not overlook a busy street with traffic noise, etc. will make a difference.
  • Ensuring appropriate transport is arranged to and from interviews, proceedings, etc., or that, where practicable, criminal justice professionals speak with victims with disabilities in a place where the victim is most comfortable.
  • Helping law enforcement and prosecutors understand the way victims with disabilities best communicate and any limitations to their ability to communicate.  
    • For example, dyslexia is a language-based disability in which a person has trouble understanding written words. In a case involving a victim with dyslexia, it would not be productive to have the victim review and attest to the accuracy of a written account of their statement to law enforcement even if that is standard practice for that particular law enforcement agency. Doing so could lead to the victim attesting to a document with inconsistencies because the individual did not understand the content and can create evidentiary issues in an ensuing criminal case.
    • Some individuals communicate “differently.” For example, some individuals without verbal skills use a keyboard-like device to enable communication. Advocates can understand how each victim best communicates and encourage law enforcement and prosecution to adapt their interviews accordingly. That may be with an assistive device, use of questioning answered by “yes” or “no” responses rather than open-ended narratives, or use of anatomical drawings or dolls to facilitate communication.
  • Encourage law enforcement and prosecution to mirror the language used by victims with disabilities.  
  • Explore alternatives to live testimony (discussed later in this module).
  • Encourage the use of comfort animals where appropriate. Comfort animals are not service animals (which are required by law to be permitted in public spaces) but they are also not merely pets. Where permitted, comfort animals can accompany victims while they testify in court to relieve anxiety. Whether this is permitted will depend on state law. Consult your agency’s state-specific supplemental guide to find out if local law permits comfort animals. Even where comfort animals would not be permitted in the courtroom, where the presence of a comfort animal would assist a victim during interviews with law enforcement and prosecution, encourage this practice as a legal basis is not needed for non-courtroom use of comfort animals.