Justice Department Commemorates the 33rd Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act Highlighting Efforts to Address the Criminalization of People with Disabilities

The program, entitled “Addressing the Criminalization of People with Disabilities,” featured guest Speaker Bryan Stevenson from the Equal Justice Initiative and focused on the department’s efforts to combat disability discrimination that leads to needless criminal justice involvement, particularly with respect to people with mental health disabilities and substance use disorders.

“We are committed to using our federal civil rights laws to address the unnecessary use of law enforcement and criminal justice responses to people with disabilities when our community service systems fail them. To fully realize the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we must confront issues that lie at the intersection of disability rights, criminal justice and racial justice. Simply put, people with disabilities should receive the services they need rather than being treated as criminals.”

-Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke

“When you look at the landscape now where we have one of the largest prison populations in the world, there is no community that has been more severely impacted than people with disabilities.”

-Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson

“Our jails and prisons are filled with people with behavioral health disabilities that we have not addressed and it is an urgent and necessary issue to take on. While we can accept and acknowledge that much has been gained, there is tremendous work that needs to happen with regard to this topic of criminalizing people with disabilities.”

-Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson