How to Communicate With Deaf People When You Don't Know Sign Language

10-19-15 National:

When you don’t know how to connect with a deaf or hard of hearing person, you can complicate the process—or worse, shut them out entirely. If you need to communicate with a deaf person, here’s what you should do.

Politely Get Their Attention

With a hearing person, you can call their name or shout something like “Hey!” But that obviously won’t work with someone who can’t hear you. They need to see you.

According to the Deaf-Hearing Communication Centre (DHCC), you have a few basic options for getting their attention that aren’t considered rude: ..Continued..

University May Remove Online Content to Avoid Disability Law

9-20-16 California:

U.S. Justice Department finds that Berkeley MOOCs and YouTube content don't meet federal requirements.

The University of California, Berkeley, has announced that it may eliminate free online content rather than comply with a U.S. Justice Department order that it make the content accessible to those with disabilities.

The content in question is all free and is for the general public to use. "The department’s findings do not implicate the accessibility of educational opportunities provided to our enrolled students," said a statement on the situation by Cathy Koshland, vice chancellor for undergraduate education.

While the university has not made a final decision, she said, it may not be able to afford complying with the Justice Department's recommendations on how to make the online material accessible.

"In many cases the requirements proposed by the department would require the university to implement extremely expensive measures to continue to make these resources available to the public for free," she wrote. "We believe that in a time of substantial budget deficits and shrinking state financial support, our first obligation is to use our limited resources to support our enrolled students. Therefore, we must strongly consider the unenviable option of whether to remove content from public access."

The announcement added that Berkeley hoped to avoid that path through additional discussions with the Justice Department.

NC Giving Few Details About Police Killing of Deaf Motorist

No more than 7 minutes and 30 seconds elapsed on Aug. 18 from the time a state trooper began chasing Daniel Harris to the approximate moment the 29-year-old deaf man was struck with a fatal bullet from the officer’s gun. But that short clip of radio traffic between Trooper Jermaine Saunders and his dispatcher offers the most detailed account yet of the 7-mile chase, which started on Interstate 485 when Saunders said he clocked Harris’ Volvo going 88 mph in a 70 mph zone. It ended in a north Charlotte neighborhood, with Harris lying dead in the street not far from his family home. ...

8-28-16 North Carolina:

Growing national scrutiny of an North Carolina state trooper’s killing of a deaf Charlotte motorist has prompted the State Department of Public Safety to issue a statement asking the public not to rush to judgment, reports the Raleigh News & Observer. The State Bureau of Investigation is conducting a criminal investigation into the shooting of motorist Daniel Harris, 29, but the agency has not said whether Harris was armed or threatened the trooper in some way.

In the meantime, media speculation had grown that it could be another case of law enforcement overreacting, with suggestions that the shooting is not unlike recent high profile cases of African Americans being killed by police. The State Bureau of Investigation has said little about what led Harris to be shot by trooper Jermaine Saunders during a traffic stop Thursday. When Saunders tried to pull Harris over for speeding, he fled and led the trooper on a seven-mile chase. Troopers said he got out of the vehicle, and that led to an “encounter” where a shot was fired. Harris died at the scene. The case has had international attention, including coverage in in African, Russian, Australian, and British newspapers and websites. ..Source.. by The Crime Report

California considering a change in Education code related to Deaf Persons

10-4-15 California:

We are getting this from DeafInPrison blog, issues following Happy Birthday post:

Second, California is currently debating a change to their education code, that will create a protection for ASL as the official language of the Deaf and HOH. If this law passes, all students who have language problems in the English speaking world, will have ASL classes available to them. Likewise, Hearing students who want to go into Special Education, as well as ASL clubs and classes in mainstreamed schools, will be offered the opportunity to learn Sign. the following video was made by students in an ASL club in an unidentified California High School. If you’re interested in learning more, the name of the law is SB210, and here’s the .gov link: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB210

There is much more over there, so we suggest folks finish reading there CLICK

Deaf in Jail – Mistreatment of the Deaf

7-28-15 National:

Deaf people belong to one of the most vulnerable layers of society for obvious reasons. They cannot hear. Deaf people in jail are even more insecure. Some might say that if a person is in jail, this person deserves it and deserves the mistreatment, despite any physical disabilities like Deafness. Prison is a punishment already. God teaches us to forgive and to have mercy. Unfortunately, not many of us follow God`s commandments.

Quite often, Deaf people in prison get poor healthcare. A Deaf person can be easy to frame or wrongly accuse. For a Deaf person, it would be difficult to prove himself not guilty. Such a person may easily become bullied and it is very rare for them to be given any tools for easier communication.

Appropriate Treatment For Deaf Sex Offenders

3-27-15 National:

Sexual predation is considered to be a heinous crime rather than a disease. In a paper written by Dr. McCay Vernon – the late psychologist who specialized in mental health issues and deaf persons – pedophilia is a “a curse,” because crimes by sexual molesters arouse so much public anger, and sex offenders often receive severe sentences by judges, juries and the public.

The curse extends beyond public outcry.

When a sex offender who is deaf, is sentenced to prison, the programs that prisons offer are often not accessible to them. Prison officials commonly – and wrongly – believe, that providing a sign language interpreter, thus an equivalency of the message will suffice. Not so. Many deaf sex offenders do not understand the psychological vocabulary that is used in these lectures. Further, they cannot read the materials.

Many Deaf adult criminal offenders are reading at the second grade level or below, have histories of physical, and emotional abuse, and may have cognitive disabilities as well. They are unable to grasp the concepts in these sessions, or learn how to process the stages in order to gain awareness of their disease. The textbooks, workbooks and other written materials are often written at the 7th grade or higher, so they cannot read the materials.

The Horror of Being Deaf and in Prison

March 5 2012:

This post comes from the Deaf-in-Prison blog:

For any human being, imprisonment is a devastating experience (No Escape, 2001). Sadistic, malicious violence is pervasive in this setting and the number one fear of inmates is that they will either be raped and/or murdered (Lockwood, 1980; and Ross & Richards, 2002).

Evidence proves that these fears are justified (Beck & Harrison, 2007; & Kuper, 1996). Part of the problem, especially with regard to rape, is that correctional officers often do little to prevent it and, on occasion, even encourage it or participate in it (Beck & Harrison, 2007; No Escape, 2001). Despite the fact that rape is both illegal and pervasive in prisons, these facilities rarely take such cases to court and prosecute the guilty party (Gilligan, 1997). Obviously this failure encourages more rapes.

When gangs are dominant in prisons, which is often the case, the problems can be even worse. These gangs go by names such as “The Aryian Brotherhood,” “Latin Kinds,” “Mexican Mafia,” “The Black Gorilla Family,” etc. (Hogshire, 1999). As their names indicate, most are comprised of racial groups with strong ethnic biases. In many cases, inmates are forced to join one gang in order to get protection from the other gangs. If they do not join they are defenseless and have no one but themselves for protection (Hogshire, 1999). ..Continued.. by Deaf-in-Prison blog

Deaf Sex Offenders in a Prison Population

2002 Texas:

Abstract:
Very little is known about deaf sex offenders. This descriptive study of a population of 41 deaf sex offenders incarcerated by the state of Texas provides information about the prevalence of sexual offenders in the deaf prison population, the educational achievement and IQ scores of deaf offenders, and the incidence of secondary disabilities in this population.

The rate of sexual offending by deaf offenders was 4 times the rate of sexual offending by hearing offenders with 30% recidivism in the population. Sexual offending by deaf adults is discussed in relation to the sexual abuse of deaf children.

Sixty-two percent of deaf sex offenders were functionally illiterate, a literacy rate considerably below the average for deaf adults who remained in school until age 18 or above. However, the performance IQs of deaf sex offenders were comparable to those of the overall prison population. ..Source.. by Katrina Miller, University of Arkansas Rehabilitation Research and Training Center for Persons Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and McCay Vernon (Have copy on disk)

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Full study is HERE