3.5 Summary
- The law, in the form of both statutes and case law (court decisions) has been critical in forbidding discrimination based on disability and enabling people with disabilities, including mental disorders, to access opportunities.
- Since the 1960s, laws have provided financial opportunities; insurance coverage; access to education; access to housing, jobs, and services; and otherwise attempted to reduce barriers that have impacted people with disabilities, including mental disorders, in all aspects of life.
- Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was the first civil rights act passed to protect the rights of people with disabilities, in 1973. This Act, and the laws that followed, were in part the product of the Disability Rights Movement that began in the 1970s and continues into the present.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA) is an important law specifically focused on creating access for people with disabilities, and it has been amended to clarify its application to people with mental disorders, or psychiatric disabilities, whether or not a particular person’s condition is medicated or otherwise managed at a given moment.
- The ADA has application in the criminal justice system, which is composed of government entities specifically regulated by the ADA (Title II). The ADA requires people in all parts of the criminal justice system, from arrest to post-prison programming, to accommodate the reasonable needs of people with disabilities in the system.
- ADA and other legal rights of people with disabilities, in and related to criminal justice, may be enforced by the United States Department of Justice (the DOJ). DOJ lawsuits may result in settlements that create change in state and local government agencies.
- Individual lawsuits can also vindicate rights under the ADA and other laws. One of the most important private lawsuits impacting people with disabilities, inside and outside of the criminal justice system was Olmstead v. LC (1999). Olmstead involved two women with mental disorders and established the rule that people with disabilities cannot be unnecessarily segregated from other members of their community due to their disabilities.
3.5.1 Key Terms
- Ableism
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Civil Rights
- Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA)
- Deliberate indifference
- Disability
- Discrimination
- Failure to accommodate
- Failure to train
- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
- Medical model of disability
- Psychiatric disability
- Reasonable accommodations
- Rehabilitation Act
- Social model of disability
- U.S. Department of Justice
- Wrongful arrest