Our partners at Disability Rights Ohio (DRO) are dedicated to ensuring that all Ohioans are full and equal members of society. The heart of their mission is to create communities where all people are equal participants. As a civil rights organization, they strive for the dismantling of racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, ageist, and transphobic systems of oppression. These systems have led to mass incarceration, stealing of lands, segregation, institutionalization, eugenics, police brutality, red-lining, income inequality, voter suppression, and countless other discriminatory policies that have oppressed and disenfranchised individuals, specifically Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
DRO recently released a policy paper discussing how police use-of-force has disproportionately impacted people with disabilities, often leading to death, and how law enforcement in schools targets students with disabilities, leading to exclusion from their schools and referral to the juvenile justice system.
“In order to build more inclusive, safer, and truly integrated communities, we must restructure budgets to increase historically underfunded community supports, including mental health and other disability services as well as reinvesting in community-based services that support individuals with disabilities.”
Disability Rights Ohio recommends policymakers reinvest in the community in the following ways:
• Making Meaningful Reinvestments into Community Services
• Changing Crisis Response
• Eliminating School Resource Officers
Read DRO’s full paper: Policing and Racial Injustice: A Disability Rights Perspective