Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part I Assessment and diagnosis
- Part II Psychopathology and special topics
- 6 The psychopathology of children with intellectual disabilities
- 7 Depression, anxiety and adjustment disorders in people with intellectual disabilities
- 8 Schizophrenia spectrum disorders in people with intellectual disabilities
- 9 Personality disorder
- 10 Dementia and mental ill-health in older people with intellectual disabilities
- 11 People with intellectual disabilities who are at risk of offending
- 12 Behavioural phenotypes: growing understandings of psychiatric disorders in individuals with intellectual disabilities
- 13 Mental health problems in people with autism and related disorders
- 14 Self-injurious behaviour
- 15 Mental health and epilepsy among adults with intellectual disabilities
- 16 Neuroimaging and intellectual disabilities
- Part III Treatment and therapeutic interventions
- Part IV Policy and service systems
- Index
- References
11 - People with intellectual disabilities who are at risk of offending
from Part II - Psychopathology and special topics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part I Assessment and diagnosis
- Part II Psychopathology and special topics
- 6 The psychopathology of children with intellectual disabilities
- 7 Depression, anxiety and adjustment disorders in people with intellectual disabilities
- 8 Schizophrenia spectrum disorders in people with intellectual disabilities
- 9 Personality disorder
- 10 Dementia and mental ill-health in older people with intellectual disabilities
- 11 People with intellectual disabilities who are at risk of offending
- 12 Behavioural phenotypes: growing understandings of psychiatric disorders in individuals with intellectual disabilities
- 13 Mental health problems in people with autism and related disorders
- 14 Self-injurious behaviour
- 15 Mental health and epilepsy among adults with intellectual disabilities
- 16 Neuroimaging and intellectual disabilities
- Part III Treatment and therapeutic interventions
- Part IV Policy and service systems
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
In the past, particularly during the eugenics era, people with intellectual disabilities (ID) were often considered to be especially likely to break the law (Goddard, 1912; Clarke, 1894, quoted in Brown and Courtless, 1971). This belief probably led to a great many people with ID and/or mental health needs being incarcerated in hospitals and prisons for unjustifiably long periods (indeed some of the people detained probably should not have been there at all). At times, this became alarmingly clear, as in the well-known Baxstrom case, in which the US Supreme Court ruled in 1966 that 967 people (amongst whom there were disproportionate numbers of black southern migrants), detained in two hospitals for the ‘criminally insane’ in New York State, should be released, since all had been detained for longer than the maximum sentence for their original conviction (Steadman and Halfon, 1971). Following release to civil hospitals, most were later discharged to the community and extremely few re-offended, only 21 of the 967 people being returned to the secure hospitals in the first four years (Steadman and Halfon, 1971). Cases such as these, together with the advent of normalization (Emerson, 1992), the civil rights movement and the ‘ordinary life’ philosophy (Kings Fund, 1980; Department of Health 2001) have led to a changing attitude to people with ID and/or mental health needs who break the law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Psychiatric and Behavioural Disorders in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities , pp. 173 - 201Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
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