Even as violent crime declined significantly in 2010, people with disabilities continued to be victims almost twice as often as those without special needs.

The findings come from an annual report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics showing that Americans with disabilities age 12 and older experienced more than 567,000 nonfatal violent crimes like rape, robbery and assault in 2010.

That’s down 25 percent compared to 2009 when over 753,000 crimes involving this population were reported.

Nonetheless, individuals with disabilities continue to be victimized at a disproportionately high rate, experiencing 28 crimes per 1,000 compared to 15 per 1,000 in the general population, the report found.

Among those with disabilities who experienced crime, about 17 percent said they believed their disability was the reason they were targeted.

Individuals with cognitive disabilities were most likely to experience crime as compared to those with other types of disabilities. Women in this population were also slightly more likely than men to be victimized.

What’s more, the report found that people with disabilities were more likely than their typically developing peers to know their attacker.

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