By: Dustin A. Richardson, Jeremy D. Barnum, Meagan E. Cahill, Dulani Woods, Kevin D. Lucey, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Brian A. Jackson

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) are at a higher risk of being victimized, arrested, and charged with a crime (The Arc, undated-a). They are also more likely to serve longer prison sentences than individuals without IDDs (The Arc, undated-a). Despite their overrepresentation, individuals with IDDs who are involved in the criminal justice system are often overlooked or neglected, and the body of research on this topic is lacking (The Arc, undated-a; Wilkerson, Lopez-Wright, and Davis, 2022). As gatekeepers of the criminal justice system, police officers are often the first point of contact for individuals with IDDs, yet rarely are they trained on how to respond to this population effectively (Melendrez et al., undated; Watson, Phan, and Compton, 2022; Watson, Compton, and Pope, 2019). Consequently, justice system professionals may have limited experience with or insufficient knowledge about IDDs, which can lead to the “misidentification of disability, a heightened risk of false confessions, inaccurate assumptions about competency and credibility, inappropriate placement in institutions, and the unknowing waivers of rights” (The Arc, undated-a). In the absence of proper training, officers are forced to rely on traditional approaches that do not account for the unique needs of those with IDDs. Therefore, it is critical to identify ways in which the law enforcement response to persons with IDDs can be improved.

This report documents an effort to do just that as part of the Priority Criminal Justice Needs Initiative, a multiyear collaboration to develop expert-identified research and policy needs on issues affecting the criminal justice system. On behalf of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), RAND and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) convened a workshop to address the law enforcement response to persons with IDDs. The purpose of this workshop was to inform a research agenda for NIJ and other stakeholders to discover and implement novel law enforcement responses to individuals with IDDs. The meeting occurred on July 12 and 13, 2023, in Washington, D.C., at the NIJ offices within the Office of Justice Programs. PERF staff consulted the research literature and identified practitioners, academics, and individuals associated with advocacy organizations to serve as participants. PERF also received input from federal partners and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) attempting to improve their response to the IDD community, taking care to include perspectives from various geographic regions.

RAND - Sep 23, 2024