Prisoners with intellectual disabilities and detention status. Findings from a UK cross sectional study of prisons

The purpose of this study was to compare social and environmental historical and contextual risk factors between prisoners with intellectual disabilities and those without intellectual disabilities, and to investigate whether prisoners with intellectual disabilities were more likely to be placed on remand in prison (awaiting trial or sentencing) compared to those without intellectual disabilities, after controlling for socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, accommodation status and nature of offences. In this study, we carried out a secondary analysis of data from the 1997 Prison survey, which included 131 prisons in England and Wales. A fixed sampling fraction was used to obtain a representative sample of prisoners. A total of 3563 prisoners were approached and 3142 (88%) prisoners gave informed consent to be interviewed. Of these, 170 were identified as having intellectual disabilities using the Quick Test. Prisoners with intellectual disabilities were more likely to have lived in institutions or taken into local authority care and more likely to live in temporary accommodation. They were less likely to have had a paid job or any educational qualifications and more likely to perceive a lack of social support. Prisoners with intellectual disabilities were more likely to be placed on remand and were less likely to be sentenced, even after controlling for socio-demographic factors and nature of offence. This study suggests that prisons should be more pro-active at identifying people with intellectual disabilities and ensuring that their needs are met, including appropriate access to bail and court diversion schemes.