This session will explore salient issues affecting people with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) who are arrested and are taken into police custody. We will appraise the evidence describe the extent to which people with intellectual and developmental disability come into contact with the police in a number of places: in the community and in police stations, both as detainees and voluntary attenders. Then we will describe the development of liaison and diversion services and the challenges they face in supporting offenders with IDD, as well as discussing the results of a pilot project in South London which focussed on the support and treatment needs of people with IDD in custody and at Court. We will then discuss the challenges of defining and identifying vulnerable detainees in a criminal justice context, presenting a critique of the current safeguards in England & Wales, and describing how these relate to international human rights law.
Chair: Dr Adrian James, President, Royal College of Psychiatrists
IDD in and around the police station - Dr Iain McKinnon, Consultant Forensic Learning Disability Psychiatrist, Cumbria Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
Police and custody liaison and diversion services for people with IDD - Professor Eddie Chaplin, Director for Research and Enterprise and Professor of Mental Health in Neurodevelopmental Conditions at London South Bank University, Institute of Health and Social Care
Towards a more holistic approach to approaching vulnerable detainees - Dr Roxanna Dehaghani, Senior Lecturer in Law, Cardiff School of Law and Politics and Global Affiliate, Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative at Emory University, Atlanta
