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Women with learning disabilities who offend: what do we know?
Author(s) -
Hayes Susan Carol
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
british journal of learning disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-3156
pISSN - 1354-4187
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3156.2007.00462.x
Subject(s) - prison , learning disability , psychology , mental health , psychiatry , population , sexual abuse , medicine , suicide prevention , criminology , poison control , environmental health
Accessible summary• There are 4000 women in prison in England and Wales. No one knows how many of them have a learning disability. • Most research on prisoners who have learning disabilities has looked at men. No one knows much about women with learning disabilities who are in prison. • Often women in prison have mental health problems. This is true for women with learning disabilities in prison too. • A lot of women in prison have been abused in the past. This is likely to be true for women with learning disabilities in prison too. • There are not many services for women in prison who have learning disabilities. We need to know more about women with learning disabilities who are in prison and what would help them. • There needs to be more community services for women who get into trouble with the police, so that they do not have to go to prison.Summary Of the 4000 women and girls in custody in England and Wales, an unknown proportion will have a learning disability. Most research on the plight of offenders or accused persons with a learning disability has focussed on men because women form a small proportion of the prison population, and women with learning disabilities are an even smaller sub‐group. Women prisoners are likely to be poor, under‐educated, and lacking in vocational skills. Many report having been the victim of physical, emotional or sexual abuse, and the majority have symptoms of mental disorder. The small number of women’s prisons and the paucity of community options for diversion from prison result in specific areas of difficulty and unmet need for this group. As with their non‐disabled counterparts, women with a learning disability in prison have a high rate of mental illness, greater than their male counterparts with a learning disability. There is little advocacy for women prisoners with a learning disability and they tend to be an overlooked and devalued group. Further research and policy development is urgently needed, enabling the voice of women offenders with a learning disability to be heard.