Offenders with learning disabilities

Abstract

In his ‘Foreword’ to Valuing People, the Prime Minister commented that the White Paper set out the ‘Government’s commitment to improving the life chances of people with learning disabilities’ (DH, 2001). Sadly, the issues affecting people with learning disabilities who get into trouble with the law received scant attention in the document. The sole reference to offenders, or alleged offenders, with learning disabilities came in paragraph 8.16 and focussed exclusively on people with learning disabilities in prison. It stated, simply, that: ‘Prisoners with learning disabilities present a wide range of issues’. And it just went on to say that ‘the prison service seeks to identify their individual needs for education and health care within the framework of addressing their sentence requirements. Prison establishments have to balance the resources needed to deliver this level of care with the many other demands of prisoner management’. No other commitments to this disadvantaged group were made. Fortunately, in the 6 years since Valuing People’s publication, things have begun to change in this important area. This is due, in no small part, to the ongoing commitment and activities of key individuals, like Phil Shackell, currently Specialist Commissioner for the North West Specialised Commissioning Team, where he is strategic lead for secure learning disability or forensic learning disability commissioning for the North West of England. His interview with Andrew Holman, reported in this edition’s ‘In Conversation’, reveals clearly the issues which need addressing in relation to offenders with learning disabilities, and the encouraging signs of progress that are now beginning to emerge. This special edition, focussing on offenders with learning disabilities is a by product of the gathering interest in reviewing policy and practice to address the needs of people with learning disabilities who get into trouble with the law. In 2006, the University of Bristol appointed Susan Hayes, an internationally respected researcher, writer and campaigner in this area, as a Visiting Professor at the Norah Fry Research Centre. To coincide with her visit, a National Information Exchange was organised, to bring together agencies and individuals throughout the UK who were actively trying to undertake work, and promote positive change, in this neglected area. The event was a resounding success, not only because of the quality of the papers presented (a number of which are reproduced in this issue of the Journal) but, importantly, because of the opportunities for multi-disciplinary collaboration and networking that it afforded to the professionals, from a wide range of backgrounds and geographical areas, who attended. Participants at the event were keen that the impetus created by it should not be lost – hence the collection of papers published here. In selecting the articles for this special edition, we had in mind a number of criteria. First, we wanted to include articles by both practitioners and researchers, which looked at the issues confronting offenders – or alleged offenders – with learning disabilities and those working with them from a range of perspectives. Second, we wanted to avoid ‘single case study’ accounts in favour of either research findings (whether small and local, or large and national or international) or overviews of what was known – or indeed, not known – about different kinds of offenders with learning disabilities and their experiences and treatment at different points within the Criminal Justice System. We would have welcomed more articles written primarily from the perspective of offenders with learning disabilities themselves – like the article by Janice Leggett and colleagues included here. We swiftly realised, however, that this is an area where self advocacy – or speaking up – about the experience of being an offender is still rare. We would also have welcomed an input from families of offenders with learning disabilities, and their perspectives on the issues that need to be addressed. But that too remains an area where work still has to be undertaken. Nonetheless, the papers published will provide an enormous resource – and valuable starting point – for anyone with an interest in this complex area. The first paper ‘Missing Out’, by Susan Hayes, neatly encapsulates in its title a fundamental problem in this area. If offenders are not identified as having a learning disability, then they are indeed ‘missing out’ on the kinds of help and special services needed to support them through the Criminal Justice process, to maximise their chances of successful rehabilitation and minimise their chances of reoffending. But this critical issue – of identifying offenders with learning disabilities – remains problematic. Jenny Talbot and Chris Riley explore this issue in more detail in their article – again with a telling title –‘No One Knows’. Their paper reports on the findings of the first phase of a major study being undertaken by the Prison Reform Trust, which is researching and publicising the experiences of people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities who come into contact with the Criminal Justice System, with a view to bringing about positive change. The article looks in detail at the problems associated with trying to ascertain the precise numbers of offenders with learning disabilities, and presents a picture of the additional challenges of prison life experienced by this group. The issue of prevalence – just how many people with learning disabilities are there in the prison system? – has long been of concern to those involved in this area. So the paper by Susan Hayes, Phil Shackell, Pat Mottram and Rachel Lancaster, reporting on the findings of the first systematic study of the prevalence of learning disability in a major UK prison (HMP Liverpool) is particularly timely. The next article in this special edition (by Janice Leggett and colleagues) presents some interesting insights into the experiences of people with learning disabilities who have got into trouble with the law, of being interviewed by the police. It makes for illuminating reading, not least on the provision and efficacy of the appropriate adult system. Richard Cant and Penny Standen’s article ‘What professionals think about offenders with intellectual disabilities in the criminal justice system’ reports on the views of a range of professionals – police, judges, magistrates – about offenders with learning disabilities and explores the implications of the wide range of attitudes that offenders may encounter on their journey through the Criminal Justice System. Most of the – limited – data we have on offenders with learning disabilities relates to adults. Rachel Fyson’s article, however, focusses on young people with learning disabilities who sexually offend and the failures in multi-agency working which mean that they rarely receive the focussed interventions they need to deal with their problematic behaviour – and the serious consequences for them that this entails. Similarly, most existing research on offenders with learning disabilities has focussed on male offenders. We were unable to locate any recent, substantive, work on the issues confronting women with learning disabilities who offend. So Susan Hayes’ overview article, on the key issues and literature in this under-researched area, is particularly welcome. We hope that it will prompt others to undertake more focussed, even if small scale or pilot, research on the experiences of this group, so that their particular needs for appropriate services and support can be better met in the future. The final article in this collection by Wendy Goodman and colleagues takes a slightly different stance from the other papers. ‘Locus of control’ reports on initial attempts to devise an easy to understand measuring tool designed to find out the extent to which offenders with learning disabilities see the pressures and forces operating on them as within or outside their control. It will be interesting to see how this early work develops in the future. Overall this collection of papers reveals the enormous amount that still needs to be done to ensure people with learning disabilities who get into trouble with the law receive the appropriate treatment that they should be entitled to under both the Disability Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Act 1998. Critical first steps should be the adoption of a universal screening test for use in police custody suites to find out whether individuals might have a learning disability and therefore need to be referred for further assessment and special support. If an offender is identified as having a learning disability, then attention needs to be paid to ensuring appropriate treatment in the court process. A wider range of options within and beyond the prison system is then required, including more local provision so that offenders are not placed many miles away from the community and people that they know, and offending behaviour programmes that do not exclude them but which they can access, understand and participate in, so their chances of ‘rehabilitation’ are increased. Appropriate support and services on release from prison are also vital, if the risk of re-offending is to be reduced. At the same time, the wide range of professionals in the Criminal Justice System who may come into contact with these offenders (who may have no knowledge of the implications of an individual having a learning disability) urgently need training and awareness-raising on their particular needs and how these might best be met. On the research side, we need to know more about the experiences of women offenders and of young offenders (including those who may not understand what an ASBO is or means and be at high risk of receiving a custodial sentence as a result of breaching it, therefore). We need to know more about what works for this group, including evidence on the effectiveness of preventative programmes. And we desperately need to know more about their experiences from offenders with learning disabilities – and their families – themselves, including what would make a positive difference from their perspective. One final critical issue emerged at the end of our national Information Exchange in 2006 – the desperate need for more collaboration and sharing of experience and expertise in this area, both locally and nationally. We hope that the papers contained within this special edition will play their part in raising awareness and sharing knowledge between interested professionals, so that offenders with learning disabilities begin to receive the appropriate treatment that they deserve – it is long overdue.