Criminal Legal Systems and the Disability Community: An Overview

While the scale and scope of the criminal legal system is often discussed with attention to racial disproportionalities, the fact that disabled people are overrepresented at all points in the system is less discussed by social workers. Disabled people come into contact with the criminal legal system as suspects, defendants, incarcerated persons, victims, and witnesses. Compared to people without disabilities, disabled people are more likely to experience victimization, be arrested, be charged with a crime, and serve longer prison sentences once convicted. These trends are even more profound for disabled people with intersecting marginalized identities, such as people of color, women, poor people, and those who identify as LGBTQ. This article provides an overview of the connections between disability, law enforcement, and practices of imprisonment in the United States. We provide a historical overview of the involvement of disabled people in the criminal legal system, review the prevalence of disability in the criminal legal system, and then discuss the unique ways in which disabled people are impacted by the criminal legal system. We conclude by providing recommendations for social work practice and advocacy based in disability justice.