Repetition of contaminating question types when children and youths with intellectual disabilities are interviewed

The Impact of Mental Illness and Intellectual Disability Information on General Public Perceptions of a Person Convicted of a Child Sex Offence

A person convicted of sex offences (PCSO) is confronted with several challenges upon re-entry to the community, often facing difficulties accessing housing and employment, and experiencing stigmatisation, hostility and harassment from community members. Given the importance of community support for successful reintegration, we examined differences in public (N = 117) attitudes toward a PCSO against a child (PCSO-C) with mental illness or intellectual disability compared to a neurotypical PCSO-C in an online survey. At present, differences in attitudes towards these groups has not been explored. Results indicated the PCSO-Cs with intellectual disability or mental illness were seen to pose less risk of sexual reoffending and prompted higher levels of reintegration comfort than the neurotypical PCSO-C. Participants' prior personal exposure to mental illness or intellectual disability was unrelated to attitudes, but those who believed that PCSOs in general have a low capacity for change attributed greater risk of sexual reoffending, greater risk of future harm to children, higher levels of blame and lower reintegration comfort, regardless of MI and ID information. Female participants also perceived greater risk of future harm to adults, and older participants estimated higher risk of sexual reoffending than younger participants. Findings have implications for community acceptance of PCSO-Cs and jury decision-making processes and highlight the importance of public education regarding neurodiverse PCSO-Cs and PCSO capacity for change to encourage knowledge-based judgements.

"I think they do not know how to lie:" The perceptions of legal support staff about person with intellectual disabilities/autism in Turkish legal system

BACKGROUND

Increased social integration of individuals with intellectual disabilities or autism could may raise their likelihood of interacting with justice system and legal staff.

AIMS

The present article aimed to determine the perceptions of the legal support staff about the individuals with intellectual disabilities or autism.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In the study, conducted with the phenomenological method, the views of 15 legal support staff were obtained. The study reported what participants perceived and examined whether participants had an accurate understanding of the experiences/support needs of people with intellectual disabilities/autism. The data were analysed with content analysis.

RESULTS

Three themes were determined: (1) Experience of interview with an individual with intellectual disabilities/autism, (2) attitudes of judges, lawyers and other staff, and (3) abuse/trauma.

DISCUSSION

Findings are consistent with literature. Individuals with intellectual disabilities/autism have problems in expressing themselves, also staff do not know them, do not know their features. Studies show that staff often do not know what to do in these interviews.

CONCLUSION

Based on the participant perspectives, it was determined that individuals with intellectual disabilities/autism experienced self-expression problems, interviewees did not understand children/individuals with intellectual disabilities or autism and could exhibit negative attitudes, the children could be abused and traumatised during judicial processes, they were more prone to abuse when compared to their peers, they could be involved in certain events more frequently and could be pushed to crime.

Sexual Assault Policing and Justice for People With Developmental Disabilities

The Services and Supports to Promote Social Inclusion of Persons With Developmental Disabilities Act that passed in 2008 was intended to improve services and supports for persons with developmental disabilities in Ontario, Canada. This legislation introduced a new mandatory police reporting policy for any suspected abuse, including sexual assault. While heralded as a significant advancement, questions remain about the policy and the Canadian criminal justice system's capacity to effectively respond to abuse of people with developmental disabilities. Drawing on qualitative interview data with police investigators and Victim Crisis Services employees in Ontario, this article examines how police respond to these reports. The findings highlight the need for more clearly defined protocols and training on these types of sexual assault investigations and increased provision and coordination of appropriate support for victims/survivors with developmental disabilities.

Sexual Behavior Among Persons With Cognitive Impairments

Although the cognitively impaired are frequently included in heterogeneous studies of problematic sexual behavior, the epidemiology, etiology, and approach to assessment and treatment of persons with dementia and intellectual disability are distinct from those of the general population. The incidence of inappropriate sexual behavior among the intellectually disabled is 15-33%; however, the nature tends to be more socially inappropriate than with violative intent. Limited sociosexual education is a large contributor, and better addressing this area offers a target for prevention and treatment. A thorough clinical assessment of problematic sexual behaviors in the cognitively impaired requires understanding the patient's internal experience, which can be challenging. Assessment tools validated for the general population have not been validated for this population. Very few studies have assessed treatment approaches specifically among the cognitively impaired; however, research does suggest utility in habilitative, psychotherapeutic, and pharmacologic approaches which have been validated among the general population.

Eyewitness recall and suggestibility in individuals with Down syndrome

BACKGROUND

Many criminal justice professionals perceive the eyewitness skills of individuals with intellectual disabilities to be weaker than those of typically developing (TD) individuals. Down syndrome (DS) is one of the most common genetic causes of intellectual disabilities, yet there is no research addressing eyewitness skills in this population. This study examined the eyewitness recall and suggestibility of young people with DS.

METHOD

Young people with DS and mental age-matched TD children viewed a video of a non-violent petty crime and were subsequently asked to freely recall the event before being asked general and specific questions incorporating both misleading and non-leading prompts.

RESULTS

Compared with mental age-matched TD individuals, young people with DS produced as much information, were just as accurate and were no more suggestible.

CONCLUSIONS

The eyewitness memory skills of young people with DS are comparable to those of mental age-matched TD children. The implications of these findings for the forensic context and eyewitness memory are discussed.

Sexual abuse involving children with an intellectual disability (ID): a narrative review

The current paper provides a narrative review of the literature on sexual abuse, involving children with Intellectual Disability (ID). The thirteen articles that were found and met our criteria vary in their definitions of sexual abuse and in how ID was determined. Still, they do paint a general picture concerning (1) the extent of sexual abuse, (2) the nature of the sexual abuse, and (3) the institutional reactions following sexual abuse of children with ID. Our findings confirm the greater vulnerability of children with ID to become involved in sexual abuse both as a victim and as a perpetrator, and we discuss ways to help strengthening prevention and intervention methods. Nevertheless, more research is needed, as it is still a rather unexplored topic, which is striking in light of the high vulnerability of this group.

Prevalence of disabled people involved in Spanish Civil Guard's police activity

Improving interventions with victims and offenders with disabilities requires analysis of the degree of prevalence of crimes in which these people are involved. For this purpose, data regarding interventions made by the Spanish Civil Guard between 2008 and 2010, in which 2099 people had some kind of disability, have been collected and analyzed, with particular regard to criminal offenses (felonies and/or misdemeanors). In this study, the relationship between the types of disability a person has and other variables like their connection to the incident, their gender, age, the relationship between victim and perpetrator, and the time and place of the events were all taken into consideration. The results show that most of the victims with disabilities served by the Spanish Civil Guard were male. The interventions were mainly aid and rescues. Criminal offenses were only 20% of the events.