Commentary on Lindsay and Dernevik's risk and offenders with intellectual disabilities: Reappraising Hodgins' Swedish birth cohort study

Abstract

Thank you for inviting us to comment on the article by Lindsay and Dernevick (2013). First, it is essential to state that determining whether intellectual disability (ID) increases the risk of criminal offending as compared with the general population is relatively trivial. The important issue is to identify the characteristics of individuals with ID who are at risk of offending, and/or engage in aggressive behaviour, and to use such findings to inform effective programmes to prevent offending and recidivism. To reappraise our study of criminal offending by individuals with ID, it is essential to examine the work of Crocker and Hodgins (1997). This paper described the study in detail and aimed to identify characteristics that distinguished children/adolescents with ID who subsequently committed criminal offences from those with no record of offending to age 30. Our findings were correct but limited by time and placeThe cohort included all the 15,117 individuals born in Stockholm in 1953 and still living there in 1963. At this time, children identified as having ID were assigned to special classes. Some children with ID were in institutions, and as noted, a very small number of them were convicted of a crime in the follow-up period. There were three kinds of special classes for children: (1) ID; (2) remedial reading and observation; and (3) visual and hearing impairments (Janson, 1980). We had data from schools when the cohort members were in grades 6 and 9. Lindsay and Dernevick (2013) suggested that the classes we studied did not