Experience of offenders with Intellectual Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System
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Experience of offenders with Intellectual Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System
Even though the majority of the people with intellectual disabilities are law-abiding citizens, there have been a number of them that have found themselves on the wrong side of the law where they have been forced to deal with the criminal justice system. Unlike many people with high intelligence quotient and able to think through their crime and come up with a way of defending themselves, this has not been the case with people with intellectual disabilities. It is also clear that there have been people that have also committed crimes and wanted to try and use the issue of intellectual disability as one of the bases of defending themselves or justifying their act which has been a massive challenge for the forensic intellectual disability expert to establish with the individual in question has the intellectual disability or if it is just a made-up story to try to cover up their tracks. To understand this has been the need for proper research paper on the same issues since many of the existing studies on this subject are based on the professional opinion and commentary but not a well-detailed study backed with evidence and literature[1]. This explains why many of the conclusions that have researched have almost been similar, with no scholar trying to advance the study due to the inability to effectively cover this area of learning in a much more detailed manner. The paper is anchored on the thesis statement that even though it has been a blessing in disguise to those who fake their intellectual disabilities to get away with their heinous crimes, the real people with intellectual disabilities have been suffering within the walls of criminal justice system regardless of whether guilty or innocent.
Background of the Study
Since the year 2002, when the forensic intellectual disability was introduced, there have been a number of challenges when it comes to the identification as well as mapping of the level of the disability when compared against the crime committed[2]. One can have some degree of intellectual disability in that they cannot be able to reason out things or even think through a couple of things leading to the crime, but at the same time, it does not amount to them being unable to effectively carry out the crime. It is clear that there is a need to ensure that people are able to understand the variation between someone who is indeed suffering from intellectual disability and the one who is faking it as an attempt to hide their tracks. There are a number of questions that the forensic ID has been able to come up with as a way of assessing if the person in question is indeed suffering from ID (intellectual Disorder) or if they are simply faking[3].
One of the biggest challenges for the criminal justice department more so the field officers have been the ability to define what intellectual disability is and what causes it. The other thing that has been a huge challenge has been the issue of understanding whether someone who suffers from intellectual disability has any degree of intelligence of hiding some of the tracks in the attempt to put off some of the people. It is clear that a huge number of people have been able to use this as a tool to defend themselves even when they are not suffering from a disability. It takes a huge time for the forensic intellectual disability experts to study and understand if the individual at hand is genuinely suffering from the condition or if it is actually a ploy to delay the justice process. The fact that that can be studied for up to three years to ascertain if they are indeed suffering from an intellectual disability is indeed a huge concern. This is anchored on the understanding it creates a lot of room for the defendant to come up with a great defense team or even try and temper with the witnesses in the bid to halt their trials, thereby subverting justice.
There are three key factors that are used in determining whether an individual is, indeed, suffering from an intellectual disability or not. The first one is that the IQ level of the individual has to be below 70. The second one is that there should be some deficits in the individual’s social functioning in that they have some level of impaired adaptive behavior and the third one is onset during childhood in that they must have been diagnosed with the intellectual disability when young specifically when they were below the age of 18 years[4]. At the same time, there is a possibility that one can have all the issues or factors stated above, but the level of severity is not that severe. It can be either borderline, mild, or even moderate, whereby it is studied either independently or in combination, which makes it difficult to come up with the estimates of the extent of the Disorder. It is on this ground that it is usually hard to have consistent findings[5]. Based on this understanding, it is indeed challenging to identify individuals with intellectual disabilities who commit crimes even though they have a tendency to display illegal as well as antisocial behaviors that are not synonymous with what the rest of the population engage in.
Characteristics of people suffering from Intellectual Disability
Even though it is hard to identify the members of the society engaged in the criminal acts that have intellectual disability, over the years the team of forensic intellectual disability experts has been able to come up with a number of features that are indeed common in most of the people with intellectual disability[6]. It has been established that they have high dependence as well as supervision when it comes to caregivers. They hardly stand as their own people. They also do not have criminal intent in many of the crimes they take part in. They simply take part in the crimes by a snap of the mind in that they do not know much of the meticulous planning[7]. They tend to act based on the situation and not based on logic or some level of reasoning. This explains why they mostly try to hide the crime scene but, in reality, leave more evidence at the scene of crime more than they should have done actually. It is because of their incompetent attempts to hide their crimes that have led to their arrests and subsequent arraignment in court. They are hardly connected to their victims. This anchored on the fact that they simply meet the victims, and upon a mental snap, they end up committing the crime hence the reason it is hard for the officers in the criminal justice system to link the individual to the crime since there is hardly a motive to work with.
Treatment of People with Intellectual Disability by Officers
It is clear that a huge number of officers during the arresting stage usually have theories about how the crime took place. There are those officers whose aim is to exonerate the innocent people who may have been listed as suspects and, at the same time, narrow down to the few that are indeed confirmed as the criminals that perpetrated the act. In such cases, there are those that will push all the limits just to ensure that they have a number that can be affiliated to the crime. People with intellectual disabilities do not have long term mental oversight to understand what is likely to happen in the future. Many of them think about what is happening then. It is because of this reason that a huge number of people have tried the best they can to cooperate with the police even when they are working against themselves. It is clear that a huge number of defendants with this condition have ended up admitting the crime even without being given the right to a lawyer.
There have been cases these individuals have been taken advantage of during the questioning or interviewing to an extent they have ended up being forced into accepting the version of the crime theorized by the police at the expense of the truth even when they know that they are indeed innocent and they did not do anything to do with the crime[8]. It is clear that there is need to understand that many people have been ended up admitting that they committed a crime which they did not all in the attempt to get a lesser charge after being threatened during the investigation that they will indeed be given a harsher sentence if they do not admit or confess their role in the crime. Under such undue pressure, many have ended up admitting to the crimes they have no idea about only to end up getting jailed for their entire lives[9].
Unlike the rest of the people that know their rights and are aware that they can simply walk out of the interview room if they feel they are being pushed into admitting what they did not know[10]. It clear that there have been cases where there has been no actual forensic evidence linking the suspect to the crime scene but simply because of their ability to get a good lawyer as well as a proper understanding of the due process, many of them are forced into admitting things that that they do not do, and they cannot get a great lawyer to justify that they are indeed honest and innocent of the crime. It is clear that there is always some level of biasness that is directed towards people living with intellectual disabilities. There are times when the biases work in favor of the suspect, and this has been the case when it comes to the issue of white color crimes such as fraud. Many of the law enforcers believe that a person with actual intellectual disability cannot be able to come up with a plan on how well they can understand and figure out a criminal activity such as fraud or a bank robbery. The fact that these two need a lot of planning and foresight on issues that are likely to happen before and after the crime.
At the same time, there have been many cases where circumstantial evidence has been put in place to ensure that the individual is indeed jailed even though they may be innocent. The problem is that they are people that are indeed innocent, but they have been jailed all because there was some bias in the whole process right from the coroner who may declare a death that was maybe an accident to be a homicide and the police that are forced to come up with non-existing evidence which ends up putting up someone in the time frame of the crime and create a narrative that makes sense[11]. The jury, on the other hand, makes the decision of ensuring that one is jailed not because of the forensic evidence at the scene of the crime or those that are linked to the victim or the suspects but instead the decision is made mainly because of the circumstances that are explained which indeed may put the suspect within the crime scene. The fact that one is indeed having a past criminal record is usually the final nail in their coffin, which ends up in a correctional facility, but this time for a crime they did not commit.
In conclusion, all aspects of the criminal justice system should simply work together to ensure that each and everything works out with the aim of getting hold of the criminal as well as clearing the names of the suspects that are just but innocent citizens[12]. The condition of the individual should be factored in more so when that condition has something to do with the mental stability of the person. The individual may be pushed into admitting something, but that is not enough proof that they committed a crime. The criminal justice system should simply promote fairness.
References
Brookbanks, Warren, and Ian Freckelton. “Offenders with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.” The Wiley Handbook on Offenders with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Research, Training, and Practice (2018): 56.
Churchill, Alison, Mindy Sotiri, and Simone Rowe. “Access to the NDIS for people with cognitive disability and complex needs who are in contact with the criminal justice system: Key challenges.” Sydney: The Community Restorative Centre (2017).
Crosby, Shantel D., Carl L. Algood, Brittany Sayles, and Jayne Cubbage. “An Ecological Examination of Factors That Impact Well‐Being Among Developmentally‐Disabled Youth in the Juvenile Justice System.” Juvenile and Family Court Journal 68, no. 2 (2017): 5-18.
Encinares, Maxima, and Gabriella Golea. “Client-centered care for individuals with dual diagnoses in the justice system.” Journal of psychosocial nursing and mental health services 43, no. 9 (2016): 29-36.
Harry, Bruce, and Park Elliott Dietz. 1985. ‘Offenders in a Silent World: Hearing Impairment and Deafness in Relation to Criminality, Incompetence, and Insanity.’ Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 13, no. 1: 85-96.
Helverschou, Sissel Berge, Kari Steindal, Jim Aage Nøttestad, and Patricia Howlin. “Personal experiences of the Criminal Justice System by individuals with an autism spectrum disorder.” Autism 22, no. 4 (2018): 460-468.
Hughes, Nathan, Betony Clasby, Prathiba Chitsabesan, and Huw Williams. “A systematic review of the prevalence of foetal alcohol syndrome disorders among young people in the criminal justice system.” Cogent Psychology 3, no. 1 (2016): 1214213.
Jones, Jessica. 2007. ‘Persons With Intellectual Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System: Review of Issues.’ International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology vol. 51: 723-733.
Kessler, Michael Joel. “Childhood, impairment, and criminal responsibility.” Journal of Global Ethics 15, no. 3 (2019): 306-324.
Lane, Corey J., and Mark David Chong. “A hard pill to swallow: The need to identify and treat ADHD to reduce sufferers’ potential involvement in the criminal justice system.” James Cook UL Rev. 25 (2019): 119.
Patterson, George T. Social work practice in the criminal justice system. Routledge, 2019.
Richards, Kelly, and Kathy Ellem. “Young people with cognitive disabilities and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system: service provider perspectives on policing.” Police Practice and Research 20, no. 2 (2019): 156-171.
Rubin, Paula N., and Susan W. McCampbell. 1994. ‘The Americans with Disabilities Act and Criminal Justice: Providing Inmate Services.’ National Institute of Justice: Research in Action July.
Walker, Robert, James J. Clark, Edward C. Monahan, Art Shechet, Bhushan S. Agharkar, Athena Kheibari, and Grant Victor Iii. “Developmental impairments in moral competence as mitigation in capital cases.” Behavioral sciences & the law 36, no. 4 (2018): 437-456.
Warren, Janet I., Shelly L. Jackson, Benjamin E. Skowysz, Shelby E. Kiefner, James Reed, April Celeste R. Leviton, Maria Francesca Nacu, Chantee G. Jiggetts, and Gerald G. Walls. “Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services.” (2019).
[1] Rubin, Paula N., and Susan W. McCampbell. 1994. ‘The Americans with Disabilities Act and Criminal Justice: Providing Inmate Services.’ National Institute of Justice: Research in Action July.
[2] Harry, Bruce, and Park Elliott Dietz. 1985. ‘Offenders in a Silent World: Hearing Impairment and Deafness in Relation to Criminality, Incompetence, and Insanity.’ Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 13, no. 1: 85-96.
[3] Brookbanks, Warren, and Ian Freckelton. “Offenders with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.” The Wiley Handbook on Offenders with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Research, Training, and Practice (2018): 56.
[4] Harry, Bruce, and Park Elliott Dietz. 1985. ‘Offenders in a Silent World: Hearing Impairment and Deafness in Relation to Criminality, Incompetence, and Insanity.’ Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 13, no. 1: 85-96.
[5] Warren, Janet I., Shelly L. Jackson, Benjamin E. Skowysz, Shelby E. Kiefner, James Reed, April Celeste R. Leviton, Maria Francesca Nacu, Chantee G. Jiggetts, and Gerald G. Walls. “Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services.” (2019).
[6] Patterson, George T. Social work practice in the criminal justice system. Routledge, 2019.
[7] Jones, Jessica. 2007. ‘Persons With Intellectual Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System: Review of Issues.’ International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology vol. 51: 723-733.
[8] Lane, Corey J., and Mark David Chong. “A hard pill to swallow: The need to identify and treat ADHD to reduce sufferers’ potential involvement in the criminal justice system.” James Cook UL Rev. 25 (2019): 119.
[9] Harry, Bruce, and Park Elliott Dietz. 1985. ‘Offenders in a Silent World: Hearing Impairment and Deafness in Relation to Criminality, Incompetence, and Insanity.’ Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 13, no. 1: 85-96.
[10] Richards, Kelly, and Kathy Ellem. “Young people with cognitive disabilities and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system: service provider perspectives on policing.” Police Practice and Research 20, no. 2 (2019): 156-171.
[11] Walker, Robert, James J. Clark, Edward C. Monahan, Art Shechet, Bhushan S. Agharkar, Athena Kheibari, and Grant Victor Iii. “Developmental impairments in moral competence as mitigation in capital cases.” Behavioral sciences & the law 36, no. 4 (2018): 437-456.
[12] Churchill, Alison, Mindy Sotiri, and Simone Rowe. “Access to the NDIS for people with cognitive disability and complex needs who are in contact with the criminal justice system: Key challenges.” Sydney: The Community Restorative Centre (2017).