People with disabilities are more likely than people without disabilities to be victims of mistreatment, abuse, neglect, and exploitation. The Victimization and People with Disabilities: It’s Real TALKS series helps you learn about victims with developmental and other disabilities who have experienced crimes of sexual assault, trafficking, financial exploitation, and Medicaid fraud; and solutions from professionals to help support survivors and to reduce victimization of people with disabilities. Consider using the accompanying Victimization and People with Disabilities: It’s Real TALKS Train-The-Trainer Discussion Guide to helps develop a better understanding of victimization and disability via step-by-step instructions, and questions to facilitate a discussion for even the greenest trainer, manager, or supervisor to facilitate with their team.
This TALKS series is also available as a full-length podcast.
Victimization: An Overview – A law enforcement officer and police department victim services’ program manager provide background on the victimization of people with disabilities and the system response to those crimes.
Sexual Assault – A victim of sexual assault who has a disability shares some of her experience with that crime, and a prosecutor offers information about what the judicial system’s response to those crimes should involve.
Trafficking – An advocate for people with developmental disabilities and an attorney for survivors of human trafficking talk about the reality of the crime of trafficking people with disabilities: what the crime is, what it looks like, and what can be done to recognize it.
Financial Exploitation – A victim of financial exploitation who was a caregiver for her mother who had disabilities talks about the impact of being financially exploited had on her and her family, including her mother. A banking professional then offers ways to recognize financial exploitation, information on the banking industry’s response to that crime, and the need for everyone to keep his/her eyes wide open and report that crime when s/he sees it.
Medicaid Fraud – A victim of Medicaid fraud talks about the vulnerability of people with disabilities to the crime of Medicaid fraud, including his own experience with that crime. Then a criminal investigator with a state attorney general’s office talks about the impact of Medicaid fraud on all taxpayers, including those with disabilities, and her office’s efforts to investigate and prosecute that crime.