Persons with cognitive disabilities such as intellectual disability, borderline intellectual disability, and acquired brain injury are overrepresented in Australian criminal justice systems both as victims and as offenders. Data obtained in Australia and internationally indicate that up to 12% of the prison population has an intelligence quotient (IQ) of less than 70, with up to 30% having an IQ of between 70 and 80, indicating substantially higher representation of intellectual disability and borderline intellectual disability than in the general population. Indigenous Australian adults in prison are significantly more likely to have intellectual disability than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Points of intervention throughout individuals' trajectories into and through the criminal justice and human service system are investigated, allowing new ways of understanding how persons with intellectual and other cognitive disabilities are vulnerable to the harms of control-and-punishment systems. Using an innovative data-linking and datamerging method, the authors compiled longitudinal administrative data from all criminal justice and human service agencies in New South Wales, Australia, to create life-course pathways for 2,731 persons who had served time in prison in New South Wales and whose mental health and cognitive disability diagnoses were available. Mapping service agency responses and institutional trajectories of these persons from an early age reveal a picture of early police contact and enmeshment in juvenile and adult corrections with high frequency, but often of low duration. Poor recognition of cognitive disability coupled with the presence of mental disorders and substance use disorders is associated with multiple and compounding social disadvantage and vulnerability to harm. This group is subject to multiple, simultaneous, and continuing human service agency interventions, which have only limited impact on their offending and (re)incarceration. Provision of appropriate support before, during, and after imprisonment is likely to reduce these individuals' vulnerability to harm and improve their experiences of community integration.

PurposePeople with intellectual disability (ID) experience high rates of physical and mental health problems, while access to appropriate healthcare is often poor. This cohort was established to develop an epidemiological profile related to the health, health service use, disability services, mortality and corrective services records of people with ID.ParticipantsThe cohort contains 92 542 people with ID (40% females) with a median age of 23 years (IQR: 12–43 years) and 2 004 475 people with a neuropsychiatric or developmental disorder diagnosis (50% females) with a median age of 51 years (IQR: 29–73 years) from New South Wales, Australia. The whole sample contains records for 2 097 017 individuals with most data sets spanning financial years 1 July 2001 to 30 June 2016. A wide range of data from linked population data sets are included in the areas of disability, health, corrective services and targeted specialist support services in public schools, Public Guardian and Ombudsman services.Findings to dateThis study includes one of the largest cohorts of people with ID internationally. Our data have shown that the presence of ID is significantly associated with emergency department presentations and psychiatric readmissions after the first psychiatric admission based on a subcohort of people with a psychiatric admission. Adults with ID experience premature mortality and over-representation of potentially avoidable deaths compared with the general population.Future plansWithin the health service system, we will examine different components, that is, inpatient, emergency adult services, children and younger people services and costs associated with healthcare as well as mortality, cause and predictors of death. The neuropsychiatric and developmental disorders comparison cohort allows comparisons of the physical health, mental health and service use profiles of people with ID and those with other neuropsychiatric disorders.

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This paper queries the absence of disabled voices in contemporary citizenship literature. It argues that the language and imagery of the citizen is imbued with hegemonic normalcy and as such excludes disability. Feminist perspectives, such as those which argue for a form of maternal citizenship, largely fail to acknowledge disability experiences. Exclusionary practices are charted and links are made between gender, race and disability in this process. A citizenship which acknowledges disability is fundamental to re-imaging local, national and international collectivities.Tomorrow I am going to rewrite the English Language. I will discard all those striving ambulist metaphors of power and success And construct new ways to describe my strength.My new different strength.(Lois Keith, 1994: 57) FEMIN IST R EVIEW N O 57, AUTUM N 199 7, EN ABLING CITIZENSHIP 51 F i g u r e 1 C i t i z e n s h i p c a m p a i g n p o s t e r, D e p a r t m e n t o f I m m i g r a t i o n a n d E t h n i c A f f a i r s , C a n b e r r a 1 9 9 5 .

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