Complex Intersections: disability,
gender, violence and
criminalisation
Presenter: Leanne Dowse, UNSW
Presentation to Inaugural Asia-Pacific Conference on Gendered Violence and Violations.
UNSW, Sydney, Australia. 10-12 February 2015
Acknowledgments
• Carolyn Frohmader, Executive Director, Women with Disabilities
Australia http://www.wwda.org.au/
 Stop the Violence Project Team –Dr Karen Soldatic UNSW, Dr Aminath
Didi UNSW, Georgia van Toorn UNSW; Therese Sands PWDA
http://www.stvp.org.au/
• Mental Health Disorders and Cognitive Disabilities in the Criminal
Justice System (MHDCD) Project UNSW. Professor Eileen Baldry.
http://www.mhdcd.unsw.edu.au/
• People with Complex Needs who are the Victims of Crime: building
evidence for responsive support. NSW Department of Justice Report.
A/Prof Prof Kimberlie Dean, Julian Trofimovs, Dr Stacy Tzoumakis.
Report Forthcoming.
Recognising issues of violence in crime and criminal justice
for women with disabilities
 Limited evidence is available at the national level
 Australian Institute of Criminology:
 Australian crime: Facts and Figures - no information is collected
on disability status.
 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
 Crime Victimisation Australia - measures crimes reported to and
recorded by police. Reports only on interconnection between
mental ill heath and crime.
 Personal Safety Survey
A Story of Exclusion
 Exclusion on the basis of circumscribed notions of disability as static,
biological and uni-categorical rather than complex and produced by
historical, social and material conditions.
 Exclusion on the basis of spatial location: large scale household
surveys by definition exclude people living in non-private,
congregated housing and supported accommodations settings from
the sampling frame.
 Exclusion on the basis of narrow categorisations of crime as physical
or sexual offences, negating those additional forms likely to be
experienced by WWD such as with holding of care, emotional and
financial abuse.
 Exclusion on the basis of static understandings of the relational
dimensions of crime where the power relations and relationships of
dependency and care are not considered in the categorisation of
perpetrators.
 Disability either not recognised or where present is considered
incidental rather than constitutive
Exposure to crime, the Criminal justice system and
the criminal law: two cases
1. Violence against women with disabilities
Stop the Violence Project
http://www.stvp.org.au/
2. Criminalisation + Victimisation
People with mental health disorders and cognitive disabilities
in the CJS study
http://www.mhdcd.unsw.edu.au/
Gendered Disability Violence: experience
 WWDs twice as likely to experience GBV and SV as non-disabled women.
 Specific forms of violence also associated with social disadvantage,
cultural devaluation and increased dependency
 Physical violence
 Sexual violence
 Emotional violence
 Institutional violence
 Chemical restraint and drug associated violence
 Forced sterilisation and contraception
 Coerced psychiatric interventions
 Violations of privacy
 Humiliation
 Harassment
 Unnecessary institutionalisation
 Denial of control over their bodies
 Lack of financial control
 Denial of social contact, employment and community participation
Gendered Disability Violence: reporting
Women with disabilities frequently do not report the violence
they experience due to:
 Inaccessible justice institutions (physical and cognitive)
 Lack of ‘safety’ for disclosure in justice spaces
 Poor access to legal protection and representation
 Limited capacity of law enforcement and legal personnel
to recognize, understand and address issues of violence
 Not seen as credible witnesses to their own
experience/testimony not believed
 Lack of accessible information about criminal and legal
processes
 Results in heightened risk – ‘ideal victim’
Gendered Disability Violence:
intersections of place and space
Important to consider context of specific intersections:
 Poverty, race, ethnicity, religion, language and other
identities
 Rural and regional spatial location – differentially impacts
on Indigenous women with disabilities.
 Cultural location
 Same-sex attracted and Lesbian women with disabilities
 Criminal justice system itself – prison
 Exposure to institutional spaces and the involvement of
the state/institutions
Lily is very clear……
My late husband and I set off on a round Australia caravan trip and a social
worker suggested our daughter would be well taken care of at Department
run flats fairly close to our home as she did not want to travel and wanted to
try and live more independently. What followed over the 2 years she was
there has damaged her irreparably both mentally and emotionally and
despite police statements about the sexual abuse, the DPP rejected
proceeding against the carer/perpetrator on the basis that it was our
daughter’s word against his. The police were surprised as they absolutely
believed her and could not understand why the case wasn't prosecuted. My
daughter is very clear and knowledgeable about not only the sexual abuse
but also the decisions made by those in control concerning every aspect of
her life as well as the other disabled residents. We as a family feel utterly let
down by the Justice system as well as the lack of accountability with regard
to the staff in whose care we left our daughter.
Natalie ……… not so clear?
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Natalie is a young woman with an ID, a history of substance and who has had various MH diagnoses including: dissocial
personality disorder, ADHD. emotionally unstable personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and a psychotic
disorder due to the harmful use of cannabinoids.
She attended a special class but was banned from school for abuse of staff and left at 14 with no qualifications.
Unable to remain in the family home due to aggravated relationship with her brother who has a mental illness – incidence
of sexual assault by sibling.
First police contact at 14 yrs as a victim of domestic violence and continues as multiple offender and ‘young person at risk’.
Lengthy periods in out of home car and crisis accommodation which often break down due to aggressive behaviour.
Homelessness as a teenager
22 Police contacts before first incarceration as a juvenile at 15 yrs. The following year had 7 episodes in JJ custody over
four months. 3 JJ custody alerts during this time for threatening self-harm and suicide attempts in JJ custody.
Multiple hospital admissions for self-harm/suicide from early teens.
Guardianship/ residential disability services she has multiple contacts with police as a result of malicious damage to
property and assaulting carers.
Domestic violence experiences as an adult and AVOs against her as both juvenile and as an adult.
Early and multiple adult custody with frequent self-harm and suicide attempts in custody.
Has had 3 high risk pregnancies with all children born by the time she is 23
Continues to have frequent policy contact and cycle in and out of custody as adult
Complex Victimisation experiences
MHDCD Data
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MHDCD Dataset study of the experience of women with complex disability, social
disadvantage and offending shows that in relation to their experience of victimisation:
 High incidence of being a victim - 89% with at least one instance
 High incidence of experience of violent victimisation - 79% with at least one such
instance
 Women more likely than men to be the victims of any crime but particularly more
like to experience violent crime such as D&FV; assault and homicide
 Women have higher rates of victimisation over time than men
 Increasingly complex circumstances associated with higher rates of violent
victimisation eg. 76.3% of those with one diagnosis, 86.7% of those with two
diagnoses and 91.5% of those with three diagnoses had been victims
Greater experience of being a victim of violence particularly associated with:
• Being Indigenous
• Having ever been homeless
• Having been in custody as a young person
• Having a diagnosed Drug and Alcohol issue
• Having more than one disability diagnosis (ID,BID, MH, ABI)
Gender + Disability + Criminalisation + Victimisation
a potent intersection
 Women with cognitive and psychosocial disability in the criminal justice
system are known to be particularly disadvantaged
 Experiences of victimisation and criminalisation are almost always
combined
 Complex intersections include:
 Complex social disadvantage
 Histories of violence and abuse as a chid and as an adult
 Poor education
 Out of home care
 Substance misuse
 Homelessness
 Vulnerability in and disabling impacts of incarceration
Conclusions
 Ambivalence of disability, gender and violence
• Little chance of recognition of crime, redress and justice
• Blurred boundaries of victim and offender
 These highlight
 Limited capacity for appropriate response by actors within
criminal justice and legal spaces when disability is present
 Limited mechanisms for supporting access and participate in legal
processes
 Intensification of disablement through interaction with the
criminal law – by neglect and by design.
 Significant challenges for the criminal justice and legal systems in
apprehending, encompassing and responding to the complex and
disparate experiences of women with disabilities.