periods of time (Nosek et al., 1997). Although the rate of crime committed against people

with disabilities is estimated to be considerably higher than the general population, a

study conducted in Boston, Massachusetts estimated that approximately 5% of the

perpetrators of crimes against persons with disabilities are prosecuted compared to a 70%

prosecution rate for the general population (Mishra, 2001). He reported that some of the

reasons provided for the alarmingly low prosecution rate of perpetrators of crimes against

people with disabilities include: (1) police are concerned about how people with

disabilities will "hold up" in court; (2) police believe that people with disabilities have

poor memories and do not comprehend the importance of telling the truth; (3) prosecutors

are concerned that juries will disregard the testimony of a person with a disability; and

(4) victims with disabilities may embellish their accounts to the police. Mishra's

contentions that people with disabilities are believed to have poor memories and do not

comprehend the importance of telling the truth was supported by Bailey, Barr, and

Bunting (2001). The belief that people with disabilities may embellish their accounts to

the police was initially proposed by researchers at the Roeher Institute (1993).

 People with disabilities were included as a protected category in the Hate Crime

Statistics Act in 1997 (McMahon, West, Lewis, Armstrong, & Conway, 2004). Since that

time, the number of hate crimes reported to the FBI where the victim was chosen because

of his or her disability status has been remarkably low. A recent study (McMahon et al.)

of hate crimes reported between 1997 and 2002 concluded that a person with a disability

is 350 times less likely to be the victim of a hate crime than if the victim was African

American (McMahon et al.). It is possible that people with disabilities simply are not

victims of hate or bias crime at a rate comparable to other protected categories. However,