Building a collaborative approach to policing in an age of disability human rights law

What is the role of doctors in respect of suspects with mental health and intellectual disabilities in police custody?

“…Social studies discourse over the last two decades has been critical regarding the over-medicalisation of disability, asserting that viewing of disability exclusively as a medical condition can prevent inclusion by minimising regard to the societal aspects of exclusion (Edwards, 2014;McNamara, 2020). In advocating a departure, then, from the traditional, pathological 'medical model of disability', social studies theorists have advanced a 'social model of disability' which constructs disability, not as a direct consequence of a person's biomedical impairment, but rather as a product of society's failure to accommodate his or her individuated needs.…”

“…Gardaí cannot therefore be expected to identify persons with mental illness or intellectual disabilities consistently, and especially without training in the area (Cusack, 2018). Such training has historically been tenuously resourced (McNamara, 2020). It is reasonable then that without identification of a disability, necessary safeguards would not be offered (Cusack, 2018;Cusack, 2020a).…”

“…In the United States of America, a quarter of exonerations related to false confessions involved people with intellectual disabilities (Schatz, 2018). In Ireland, although the situation is improving (Mulkerrins et al 2020), it remains the case that, at the time of writing, few formal and consistently used pre-trial safeguards exist (McNamara, 2020).…”

Court innovations and access to justice in times of crisis

“…The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), for example, sets out the right of access to justice under Article 13 and requires States Parties to provide procedural and age-appropriate accommodations to facilitate an individuals’ role as a direct and indirect participant at trial (including as witnesses). The principle of access to justice is seen as an overarching principle which must be read in line with other rights in the Convention [8] . Access to justice has also referred to a number of other rights, including the right to have access to procedures, information and locations used in the administration of justice and also the right to be tried without undue delay [9] .…”