This fact sheet explores how mass incarceration in the U.S. disproportionately impacts people with disabilities and Deaf people—particularly those who are Black, Latinx, and Indigenous. While psychiatric disabilities are often cited, other forms such as intellectual, physical, and sensory disabilities are frequently overlooked. The fact sheet provides a cross-disability framework and highlights stark disparities at every stage of the criminal legal system, including arrest, incarceration, and community supervision. Centering disability equity is essential to achieving justice reform.

This paper examines the deep and disproportionate impact of local mass incarceration on people with disabilities and Deaf people—particularly those who are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, low-income, or survivors of violence. It traces the historical roots of institutionalization, highlights the systemic drivers of criminalization, and reveals how disability remains overlooked in mainstream reform efforts. The report offers concrete policy and practice recommendations, urging the field to center disability equity as essential to ending mass incarceration.

This four-piece toolkit provides a step-by-step process for public defense, legal aid, and other attorneys to secure accommodations and provide modifications for their clients who have disabilities and those who are Deaf. Download to learn about foundational steps for establishing a culture of access; how to ask clients about their accommodation needs; and sample modifications for supporting access and communication.  

This three-part toolkit is for nonprofits, service providers, advocacy groups, and other community-based organizations that work with and support people impacted by the criminal legal system. Collectively, these tipsheets offer step-by-step guidance for establishing a practice of asking about and providing accommodations for clients with disabilities and those who are Deaf.

Despite the fact that the majority of people in prisons and jails have at least one disability, disability and Deaf organizations have not traditionally been included in efforts to advance local criminal legal reforms. Activating Change’s toolkit offers practical guidance for shifting this trend and for forming partnerships with an essential but overlooked constituency – the disability and Deaf community.