High as they are, these rates are likely to be an underestimate. They are based on self-reports, and research has shown many people fail to report a disability – particularly an intellectual or cognitive disability – to avoid stigma or because they simply don’t know they have one.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has also found that people with cognitive, intellectual and developmental disabilities are more prevalent in jails – where people are sent immediately after arrest, to await trial or to serve a sentence of one year or less – than prisons. Jails tend to be associated with what have been called “crimes of survival,” such as shoplifting and loitering. These offenses are linked to unemployed people and people experiencing homelessness – communities in which rates of disabilities are higher.
As a result, a disproportionate amount of people with disabilities enter America’s criminal justice system. I see this in my research on intellectual and developmental disabilities – diagnoses like autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, ADD/ADHD, Down syndrome, and general cognitive impairment are common in our criminal justice system.
In jail, no one listens
Between 2018 and […]
The cost of providing preventative and ongoing mental healthcare for at risk individuals would probably be cheaper than housing them in our for profit prison system. This not to mention the alleviation of untold suffering for the families and populations effected.
Why are we so far behind our European neighbors in this basic calculus? I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that our choice of social models represents a collective moral deficit of staggering proportions.
Factually, you are correct Travis W Zinn. Much cheaper.