ABSTRACT
When we think of disability we might picture a person in a wheelchair, feel pity or, more ‘positively’, conjure up the image of the ‘super cripple’, epitomised in events such as the Paralympics. To regard disability as a form of ‘deviance’ appears erroneous even from the most uninitiated position, and yet this social position appears confirmed by the treatment of governments who seek to defund support for vulnerable disabled people and by prevailing community attitudes that support attacks, abuse and the ill-treatment of disabled people more broadly. While many people would believe that attacks on disabled people, simply because of their condition, are a major social taboo, Home Office data reported that 1,744 disability hate crimes were recorded by the police in 2011–12. The increasing problem of hate crime is linked to a perception of disability as conferring the position of being ‘other’, less than human, or different in ways that justify abusive or violent behaviour.
