Disabling justice: Social justice, human rights and mental and cognitive disability in the criminal justice system
Eileen Baldry PhD is Professor of Criminology in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies, UNSW where she has taught in the social policy, social and community development and criminology programs and has been Associate Dean (Education). She has researched with prisoners and people transitioning from prison and post-prison, homelessness and Indigenous justice as well as with criminal justice and human service government and NGO agencies and has numerous publications relating to these areas of work. She has been an advocate for social justice in criminal justice for over 25 years and is a founding member of the Beyond Bars Alliance, the Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign, the Women in Prison Advocacy Network, the Coalition for Intellectual Disability in the Criminal Justice System and the Crime and Justice Reform Committee. For work in these areas she was awarded the NSW Justice Medal in 2009. Recent and current research projects, in which she is a chief investigator include The Australian Prisons Project; People with Mental Health and Cognitive Disability in the Criminal Justice System; its follow up project Indigenous Australians with Mental Health Disorders and Cognitive Disability in the Criminal Justice System; Working from the ground up: community development with public housing communities; Social and Cultural Resilience and Emotional Well-being of Aboriginal Mothers in Prison; and Aboriginal Women with dependent Children leaving Prison. She is the current President of the NSW Council of Social Services.
Abstract
Across the western world, since the latter part of the twentieth century, people with mental and cognitive disabilities have been funneled into criminal justice systems, remanded, sentenced and imprisoned in larger numbers than previously and in far higher proportions than their presence in the general population. Australian criminal justice systems are no exception. The use of societal punishment and control systems in this manner is a deeply disturbing turn. People with these disabilities who become enmeshed with the police, courts and prisons are largely from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and communities, with Indigenous Australians significantly over-represented amongst them. As criminal justice processes are primarily to assess guilt and administer punishment, they tend to intensify experiences of disability; prison is not a therapeutic place. So why are there so many people with mental and cognitive disability incarcerated? Evidence from recent studies and cases suggest that at heart, this is a matter of how Australian society supports, enacts social justice for and affords human rights to the most vulnerable people.
The lecture was introduced by Mr Alan Kirkland, CEO, Legal Aid NSW
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