In last week’s article (which can be accessed by clicking here), I looked at how mental/intellectual disabilities can significantly increase the risk of victimization. In this article I will look at the ways in which those with physical disabilities are more likely to be targeted than those without them. One of the things that differentiates physical disabilities from mental ones is that in many cases they are “external” and “visible” e.g., a predatory individual can easily recognize someone with a physical disability by the way they move/walk and/or due to aids they have which assist them to do so, such as a cane or stick, a wheelchair and/or calipers, or even hearing aids and cochlear implants etc. Research has shown that those with visible disabilities are targeted and victimized at far higher rates than those without (Harrell, 2017).

Harrell’s research using National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data has shown/demonstrated that this higher rate of victimization occurs across all violent crime e.g., for rape/sexual assault, street robbery, simple/aggravated assault etc. Other research has shown that this extends to offenses such as verbal harassment (Mueller-Johnson et al., 2014) and stalking (Reyns & Scherer, 2017), as well as intimate partner violence (Porter & Williams, 2011). From these findings it would be easy to make the assumption that individuals with visible disabilities are simply seen as being more vulnerable than those without. However, this would be overly simplistic and would result in us treating those with various visible/physical disabilities as a homogenous group, which doesn’t stand up too much scrutiny.

                Hearing loss/impairment can significantly affect communication. I can attest to this firsthand as my son – now an adult – has had to wear hearing aids for most of his life. Fortunately, when we have miscommunicated conversations, it is usually about UK soccer games/results, which can be easily resolved as there is little emotion involved, and the personal “stakes” aren’t high. However, I could easily see someone getting frustrated when emotions are running high, if they are unable to communicate the issues/trigger that has caused them to become aggressive in the first place e.g., a situation involving an everyday social interaction that has taken a wrong turn, such as a dispute over a parking space etc. One thing I’ve advised my son to do in such situations/social interactions is to point to one of the hearing aids and say, “I’m hard of hearing. If you talk too fast, I may not be able to understand what you’re saying.” When teaching collections agents that deal with clients over the phone, we have found that an easy de-escalation strategy when a customer becomes emotional is to ask them to slow down, rather than tell them to calm down. By getting them to talk slowly, they have to consider what they are saying – in listening to themselves speak - and can’t just let their emotional state drive what they are saying.  

                A physical disability such as deafness or blindness also means that an individual’s immediate understanding of the world and potential threats can be compromised e.g., someone who suffers from hearing loss and who has taken out their hearing aids might not hear a window in their home being broken – I had a South African BJJ instructor who told me that one of the things he liked about living in the UK was that he could, when in his house, listen to music, with headphones on/in; something he would never do in South Africa because of the fear of break-ins and home-invasions etc. In 2020, in Lubbock, Texas, a 63-year-old legally blind resident fired through his door at someone he believed was breaking into his house to cause him harm. The person shot was a 21-year-old woman and her friend who had mistakenly believed that his front door was the door for their apartment block; most “home invasions” aren’t actually home invasions but involve either people attempting to “break-in” because they’ve forgotten their key, or have mistaken the apartment/building for theirs etc. Having a disability may mean that someone under-reacts (they don’t hear a window being smashed), or over-reacts e.g., uses lethal force regarding a threat that is benign.

                When looking at blindness/visual impairment it is again easy/simplistic to look at this group as a homogenous group, however this is not the case e.g., there are those who are adventitiously blind (AB), who became blind after birth and so have visual memories, and there are those who are congenitally blind (CB) i.e., people who were born blind, or became blind so early on in their childhood that they have no visual memories etc. This means that these two distinct groups have different histories and memories about how they operate in the world. There is also something known as “blind sight” where individual’s eyes physically operate but the imagery they capture isn’t processed visually. Such individuals can navigate objects in their way without “seeing”/processing what the object is. What this illustrates is that when we are training people with such disabilities on how to be safe and how to protect themselves, we really need to take the time to understand how that individual operates in the world e.g., someone who is legally blind may have some vision and/or understand their environment even if they can’t “see” it as a “picture” etc. Rather than instructors prescribing how someone with a disability perceives the world we should take a moment to find out how the individual with the disability understands and navigates it. From a “selfish” perspective learning this may enhance our own understanding.

                Unfortunately, we still live in a world where predatory/exploitative individuals also live. People who are looking and searching out for vulnerabilities, whether it’s an unlocked door or a physical disadvantage. When considering personal safety with those who have a physical disability we should not somehow think that there are two sets of rules. We should consider personal safety and build in safeguards, for the threats and dangers that we don’t hear or see, for the threats and dangers where our mobility is compromised etc. If we lack these types of physical impairments, we should see that as an advantage that we possess, and it may be worth our time learning from those who lack such advantages to get an appreciation of the methods and approaches that those who do use to improve/enhance their safety.