Disability and safety: rights, risks and layers of influence

1. Disability and safety: rights, risks and layers of influence Dr Chih Hoong Sin Principal, Office for Public Management NDA Annual Conference 2011 13 October 2011 Restricted external

2. Overview of my presentation • Hearing from victims of disability hate crime • A model – ‘layers of influence’ • Risks and rights ‘in action’ Restricted external

3. Before we start… • The information may be distressing • The work is underpinned by a social model approach: • Impairment taken as starting point and NOT as explanation in itself for experiences • Language and terminology Restricted external

4. Background • Drawing on: • a number of research studies I directed, particularly: • Disabled people’s experiences of targeted violence and hostility (Equality and Human Rights Commission) • Don’t stand by (Mencap) • practice engagement with police forces in England and with voluntary and community sector organisations • my experiences of ‘joining up’ with those who work on other types of hate crime Restricted external

5. A ‘layers of influence’ model • Disabled people are embedded within nested hierarchies of social aggregates • Disability is only one factor of individual characteristics (e.g. ethnicity, gender, age, class, etc) • Family, friends and carers and their role (e.g. victimised, conditioning, etc) • Organisations/institutions (e.g. DPOs, health and social care, housing, police, etc) • Wider society and attitudes (e.g. attitudes towards disability, welfare reform, austerity measures) Restricted external

6. A ‘layers of influence’ model • Characteristics of entities within each ‘layer’ have an influence, but not deterministic • Different entities within each layer can interact • Different entities across different layers can interact • Linkages/interactions are complex and are not pre-determined Restricted external

7. What may it look like? The Winterbourne View scandal • Wider society and attitudes: • Disabled people seen as in need of care (in this case, people with learning disabilities) • Not only ‘in need of care’, but a particular form of ‘care’ - institutionalisation • Previous investigations/recommendations not had any impact in shifting this • Organisations/institutions: • Services have developed that sustain dependency • Majority of residential placements in UK are adults with learning disabilities • Not only institutionalisation, but out of area placements • Sidelined by personalisation agenda Restricted external

8. What may it look like? The Winterbourne View scandal • Family members: • Once in segregated settings, socially isolated. Few visits from family • Family believe that care workers are providing good care • Carers: • Settings sustain unequal power – can lead to violence and abuse • ‘Predatory’ and ‘corrupted’ caregivers (individual motivation) • But also link back to wider attitudes about disability: ‘lesser’, ‘incomplete’, ‘lacking’ • Easily lends itself to dehumanising Restricted external

9. Risk – How the individual is embedded within wider structure • Strong link between impairment and socio-economic status: • Especially so for mental health conditions and long-term conditions • Socio-economic differences also have strong geographical implications nationally, regionally and locally: • ‘aggregation of disabled people’ • Certain sub-groups ‘more at risk’ because of combinations of the above: • E.g. Disabled women, disabled children/young people • Certain sub-groups ‘more at risk’ of certain types of crimes because of combinations of the above: • E.g. sexual violence, property stolen with threat or use of violence, etc. • Interaction of disability and other real/perceived identities Restricted external

10. Types of incidents • Physical • Verbal • Sexual • Targeted anti-social behaviour • Damage to property/theft • School bullying • Incidents perpetrated by statutory agency staff • Cyber bullying • Huge range, but prevalence of so-called ‘low level’ incidents with high impact Restricted external

11. ‘Hot spots’ • ‘On the street’ and public transport • In and around home-based settings • In schools, colleges and at work • Residential settings • Different types of incidents, affecting different sub-groups of disabled people are played out unevenly in different ‘hot spots’ Restricted external

12. Motivations • Not identifiable ‘villains’ (“adults leading everyday lives” – Home Office 2007) • Strangers, but also people ‘known’ to victim: • Within and around area of residence (e.g. neighbours) • Colleagues, people at school, etc. • Carers and other individuals providing services to disabled people • Family members and friends • Key factors: • Perceptions of vulnerability / dependency • Perceptions of threat • Actual or predicted behaviour of disabled person • Perpetrators thinking they can ‘get away with it’ • Control and unequal power relations Restricted external

13. Quick summary • Risk not simply due to disability: • Other real/perceived identities • Risk not simply due to ‘in-person’ characteristics: • Poverty and deprivation • Geography • Accumulation of risk factors • Vulnerability is situational: • not explained by any inherent characteristic of victim or perpetrator or place – do not go looking for ‘villains’ or ‘victims’ • Motivations not always triggered into action Restricted external

14. Impact and response • Impact: • Aggravation of existing conditions • Action and aggression – become ‘perpetrators’ • Fear of disclosure – Section 146 not used • Impact on family members of victims • Wider conditioning to ‘avoid’ and ‘accept’: • Ignore perpetrators • Restructure lives • Symbolic impact on other disabled people who have not experienced it • Implications: • Under-reporting, accepted as ‘everyday’ • Legislative instruments may not be used • Negative consequences for social inclusion / citizenship Restricted external

15. Response from organisations/agencies • Protectionist (‘disabled people are vulnerable’): • In need of help and protection, rather than in need of justice and redress • Removed from real/perceived threat, rather than take action against perpetrators • Social policy rather than criminal justice policy • Deficiency (‘disabled people are lacking’): • Not believed, credibility doubted • Punitive (‘disabled people are threat’): • ‘Trouble-makers’, nuisance, perpetrators Restricted external

16. Rights and risks • Rights-based approach can be competing or contradictory (e.g. right to private life and right for protection is that private life is harmful) • More structured and explicit processes for managing risk, especially when risk is ongoing or posed by perpetrators known to the victim (e.g. ‘mate crime’, personalisation) • Balancing act, but disabled people must be involved • Recognise multiple identities (i.e. not only disabled) • Recognise structural factors – material and attitudinal (e.g. material deprivation, ‘minoritised’ identities) Restricted external

17. For the full EHRC and Mencap research reports, visit: www.opm.co.uk For the animated video clip, visit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw3tMPuKSKc or view via OPM’s website. For more information Restricted external