‘I feel like I failed him by ringing the police’: Criminalising disability in Australia
| Author | Eileen Baldry,Ruth McCausland |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474517696126 |
| Published date | 01 July 2017 |
| Date | 01 July 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishment & Society
2017, Vol. 19(3) 290–309
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474517696126
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Article
‘I feel like I failed him
by ringing the police’:
Criminalising disability
in Australia
Ruth McCausland and Eileen Baldry
University New South Wales, Australia
Abstract
The stigmatisation, control, criminalisation and incarceration of people with disability
have a long history. While in recent decades there has been increasing commitment to
the rights of people with disabilities by governments in western nations, the over-
representation of people with mental and cognitive disability in criminal justice systems
has continued. Although there are similarities amongst Western jurisdictions in regard
to the treatment of people with disability in justice systems, there are particularities in
Australia that will be drawn out in this article. We argue that disadvantaged people with
mental and cognitive disability are being managed by and entrenched in criminal justice
systems across Australia’s six states and two territories, including so-called diversionary
and therapeutic measures that appear to accommodate their disability. In the absence of
early and appropriate diagnosis, intervention and support in the community, some
disadvantaged and poor persons with mental and cognitive disability, in particular
Indigenous Australians, are being systematically criminalised. Criminal justice agencies
and especially youth and adult prisons have become normalised as places of disability
management and control. Drawing on research that focuses in detail on the jurisdictions
of the Northern Territory and New South Wales, we argue for a reconstruction of the
understanding of and response to people with these disabilities in the criminal justice
system.
Keywords
Australia, cognitive impairment, court diversion, disability, indigenous people, life course
data, mental health, socio-economic disadvantage, therapeutic jurisprudence, youth
detention
Corresponding author:
Ruth McCausland, School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney,New South Wales 2052,
Australia.
Email: ruth.mccausland@unsw.edu.au
Introduction
In August 2016, footage was screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
of guards in a youth detention centre in the Northern Territory (NT) restraining,
isolating and assaulting children in their care (Meldrum-Hanna et al., 2016).
The programme focused in particular on the case of Dylan Voller, a 16-year old
Aboriginal young person, who was filmed hooded and strapped to a chair.
The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Commonwealth Attorney General,
George Brandis, subsequently issued a media release stating: ‘Like all Australians,
we were shocked and appalled by the images of mistreatment of children at the
detention centre’ and announced a Royal Commission into youth detention in the
NT (Turnbull and Brandis, 2016). Yet the events screened should not have been a
revelation to political leaders or other Australians attuned to these issues. Nor are
they isolated or unusual incidents. They are part of the systemic criminalisation
and incarceration of vulnerable children and adults from disadvantaged
backgrounds across Australia. Indigenous Australians
1
are significantly over-
represented amongst these persons. Families, advocates, lawyers, researchers and
others have been documenting and raising concerns in regard to this injustice
for many years. In interviews after the programme aired, Dylan Voller’s
mother Joanne Voller and youth justice advocate Antoinette Carroll from
the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service indicated that Dylan had
experienced early trauma, had significant behavioural issues and undiagnosed
disability (Wild, 2016). In those interviews, it was reported that Dylan attended
five different schools between the ages of six and nine. When he was 11, he report-
edly broke a window at home, at which time his mother was advised if she
reported him to police, Dylan would get the help he needed (Wild, 2016). She
stated: ‘I was seeking help....I in no way thought he would be hooded and chained
to a chair or thrown in isolation for 200 days at a time. I don’t see that as
counselling or helping him. I really feel like I failed him by ringing the police
that day when he broke my window, to be honest’ (Wild, 2016). Dylan has report-
edly spent the five years since that day cycling in and out of youth and adult
detention for offences relating to property damage, theft, assault and breaching
court orders (Wild, 2016). Carroll stated that she had seen ‘a lot more kids’ in a
similar situation (Wild, 2016).
The stigmatisation, control, criminalisation
2
and incarceration of particular
groups of people with disability has a long history stretching back beyond the
advent of the modern prison in the eighteenth century. While in recent decades
there has been increasing commitment by governments to the rights of people with
disabilities, the over-representation of people with mental and cognitive disability
3
in criminal justice systems appears to have increased, as evidenced in successive
surveys and reports across Western jurisdictions (see for example, Criminal Justice
Joint Inspection, 2015; Indig et al., 2010, 2011; NSW Justice Health & Forensic
Mental Health Network & Juvenile Justice, 2016). As discussed later in this article,
this may be due to greater recognition and reporting or it may be due to a real
McCausland and Baldry 291
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