Neurodisability and the criminal justice system: a problem in search of a solution

Abstract

People with neurodisability are over-represented in criminal justice populations around the world. However, despite a growing number of international studies confirming the high prevalence rates of mental illness, intellectual, cognitive and developmental disorders in custodial settings,1 less attention has been paid to the critical elements of the justice systems that perpetuate often unnecessary and undesirable criminal justice intervention in these people’s lives. Broadly, neurodisability includes acquired brain injury (ABI) and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI), autism, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), and intellectual disability, all of which are the focus of this book. Research, exposing the negative impacts of criminal justice processes on people living with neurodisabilities, has identified multiple factors that heighten the likelihood of imprisonment, and draws attention to symptomatic behaviours that are