What can social and environmental factors tell us about the risk of offending by people with intellectual disabilities?

Abstract

A minority of men and women with intellectual disabilities at times engage in, and are suspected, or convicted, of illegal activity. Recent policy developments in England and Wales emphasise the need to respond appropriately to putative offending risk through the provision of safe and effective community management, treatment, and support services. In line with these concerns, research has focused increasingly on testing the utility of an evolving variety of risk assessment procedures. Here, the authors set out to challenge the repertoire of a number of prominent and/or recently developed risk assessment procedures and the scope of an associated research literature, on the basis that contextual risk factors are receiving insufficient attention in relation to offending among people with intellectual disabilities. Drawing on the wider criminological literature, a novel study is reported that compares key contemporary proximal social and environmental circumstances in the lives of offenders and non-offenders with intellectual disabilities. A contextual risk score is derived, providing statistical support for increased consideration of the impact of relevant social and environmental circumstances. Increased emphasis on key contextual risk factors is recommended to strengthen community service responses to offenders with intellectual disabilities.

Offenders with intellectual disabilities in prison: what happens when they leave?

“…Once placed in a setting, it appeared that many men had very little to do, even though this has been shown to be linked with offending (Wheeler et al . ). Extremely few men in this sample were working (even for a few hours per week), and only a small number were volunteering, as Cockram () also found.…”

“…It is thought that good family support protects people with ID from engaging in further crimes, as has been suggested by Wheeler et al . (), but it is also true that conflict with families is not a protective factor (Wheeler et al . ), so services should not assume that settling a man back with his family is necessarily a good solution when he leaves prison.…”

“…Nevertheless, given the consistent evidence that employment protects against reoffending in the general population (Soothill & Holmes ; Uggen ) and in the population with ID (Wheeler et al . ), it would seem important for men with ID to be occupied in structured activities even if they do not work. But the reality was that many men were extremely under‐occupied, with the average number of half days with any structured activity whatsoever being only four (out of 10) on weekdays.…”

Offending by People with Intellectual Disabilities in Community Settings: A Preliminary Examination of Contextual Factors

“…Nevertheless, key informants (family carers, support workers or practitioners) were interviewed as part of the wider study, from which the results reported here are drawn, and these interviews revealed very good levels of agreement, on objective accounts of life circumstances, between informants and participants (98% agreement; see Wheeler et al . ). In addition, the study was conducted in participants’ own homes, which offered many prompts, such as diaries and daily activity timetables that were used to assist accurate recall of everyday arrangements and life experiences.…”

“…We wish to emphasize the need for researchers to take adult life circumstances seriously, not just as indicators of personal developmental traits, such as attachment, but of direct concern as independent predictors of offending risk (see also Wheeler et al . ) and as factors which might be targeted in interventions.…”