Supporting people with cognitive disabilities in contact with the criminal justice system: the importance of relationship-based practice

Abstract

People with cognitive disabilities who encounter the criminal justice system as offenders have often experienced multiple layers of disadvantage. Service responses in the criminal justice system and within the broader community may not adequately address communication, behavioural, and social issues of people with cognitive disabilities, resulting in people continuing to cycle in and out of youth detention or prison and failing to address issues of community safety. This article synthesises the findings from a program of Australian research that explored the experiences and insights of people with cognitive disabilities who have been identified as offenders and service providers who have supported this group in negotiating the system. Taken together, these studies outline a critical role for relationship-based practice with people with cognitive disabilities that address both personal and structural concerns. This practice approach is developmental, focusing on helping a person to achieve power over resources, relationships, information, and decision-making. It is argued that meaningful change can also occur by forming intentional communities around issues of concern. This article identifies how relationship-based practice can occur in interactions with police, within the prison system, and in the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). These ideas are supplemented by other studies on relationship-based practice to develop a further understanding of how to provide effective support to this group.

Keywords:

• Cognitive disability
• criminal justice system
• relationship-based practice

Note

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all my colleagues who were involved in the above studies. Collectively, they represent a vast body of experience and expertise in research with people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. I would also like to thank the industry partners who were involved in the above research studies – in particular, Community Living Association for its insights into relationship-based practice. Appreciation is also given to the organisations who funded the above research – the Australian Research Council [grant number LP150100528] and Queensland Centre for Social Science Innovation. Most of all, this article would not have been possible without the willingness of participants to share their valuable knowledge and experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 People with “cognitive disabilities” include individuals with intellectual impairment (particularly in the borderline [IQ range 70–80] and mild range [IQ range 50–69]) (World Health Organization, 2017), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Crane et al., 2016) and acquired brain injury (including foetal alcohol spectrum disorder) (Gralton, 2014). For many people in contact with the criminal justice system, the causal nature of their cognitive difficulties may be unclear, and some people have a co-occurring mental illness that further complicates diagnosis (Baldry et al., 2013). This grouping together of diagnostic labels (referred to by some authors as dedifferentiation [Clegg & Bigby, 2017]) emphasises the common issues faced by people with cognitive difficulties, which include a complex interaction of individual, social, cultural, economic, and political influences. However, the term “cognitive disability” may unintentionally represent people as a uniform group. As well as common needs arising from a particular type of impairment, each person’s unique needs arising from their disability and life circumstances must also be considered.