Police attitudes toward people with intellectual disability: an evaluation of awareness training

Abstract

It is argued that more favourable police attitudes to people with intellectual disability (ID) are essential in meeting the police code of ethics, which stresses impartiality and respect for human dignity. The need to acknowledge and investigate the extent of support for eugenic attitudes in other key professionals who have a significant role in the successful inclusion of people with ID in community settings is discussed. The present paper reports on the evaluation of an awareness training event conducted by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in terms of the impact on attitudes towards people with ID held by police officers. The quasi-experimental design involved the measurement of participants' attitudes prior to and following awareness training, and the comparison of these data with a control group of participants who did not undertake awareness exercises. The Attitudes toward Mental Retardation and Eugenics (AMRE) scale was the instrument used to measure attitudes. Analysis identified the presence of varying degrees of support for the application of eugenic principles to people with ID. Furthermore, the results indicate that participation in the awareness exercise and subsequent discussions is associated with a significant reduction in support for eugenic-based attitudes towards people with ID by the police officers involved. Investment in training events which target attitudes towards people with ID can bring about a shift in reported attitudes. The importance of evaluating such awareness-raising exercises and their impact on police behaviour is highlighted.

Vulnerability in custody: perceptions and practices of police officers and criminal justice professionals in meeting the communication needs of offenders with learning disabilities and learning difficulties

“…For example, the Prison Reform Trust's No One Knows research programme (Jacobson, 2008) highlighted particular challenges relating to the inconsistent treatment of offenders with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties due to acknowledged difficulties from front-line police officers in identifying their needs and responding appropriately (also Bailey, Barr & Bunting, 2001;Cant & Standen, 2007;Gendle & Woodhams, 2005;Henshaw & Thomas, 2012;Keilty & Connelly, 2010). This is in a context where it is estimated that 20-30% of all offenders in the UK '…have learning difficulties or learning disabilities that interfere with their ability to cope within the criminal justice system; of this group 7% will have very low IQs of less than 70' (Jacobson, 2008;p.…”

“…This idea is especially relevant to the context of custody where there is a lack of awareness and understanding by frontline officers about the capabilities and intentions of individuals with learning disabilities or difficulties (e.g. Bradley, 2009;Bailey et al, 2001), not least because such individuals can be very difficult to identify unless they self-disclose (Cant & Standen, 2007;Jacobson, 2008). Moreover, individuals may not even know themselves that they have a 9 difficulty until they are faced with such a challenging context (Williams et al, 2015).…”

Disability Diversity Training in the Workplace: Systematic Review and Future Directions

“…role playing, discussion, games) were more effective in improving both cognitive and affective outcomes than those that use only passive, lecture-based methods and videos [13]. When reviewing diversity training content, some of the most common active learning practices are role-playing exercises [34,[39][40][41][42][43], simulation exercises [35,42,44,45], case studies/analyses [33,[39][40][41], and group discussions [34, 38-41, 43, 44]. Although these do not encompass the breadth of diversity training practices, these are most common across those programs with significant outcomes.…”

Evaluación de actitudes de los profesionales hacia las personas con discapacidad

“…En la revisión realizada por Antonak y Livneh (2000) se concluye que la evaluación de actitudes mediante dichas escalas puede estar afectada por el sesgo de la deseabilidad social, por lo que se requiere el desarrollo de métodos innovadores de evaluación e instrumentos que demuestren suficiente solidez psicométrica en cuando a las evidencias de validez, fiabilidad, dimensionalidad y sensibilidad al cambio. Si carecemos de tales instrumentos, no será posible obtener respuestas concluyentes a importantes preguntas de investigación que tienen que ver con la relación entre las actitudes y la aceptación, la integración y la inclusión plena de las personas con discapacidad en la sociedad (Bailey, Barr y Bunting, 2001;Bigby, Clement, Mansell y Beadle-Brown, 2009;Edwards, Lennox y White, 2007;Graham, Herbert, Price y Williams, 2004;Ostapczuk y Musch, 2011). En el caso de la evaluación de actitudes hacia las personas con discapacidad en lengua española, carecemos de instrumentos actualizados y validados con muestras españolas representativas (y menos aún con instrumentos específicamente dirigidos a profesionales) y desarrollados con están-dares elevados de calidad científica, por lo que el objetivo del presente estudio se ha centrado en la validación y aplicación de un instrumento con propiedades métricas sólidas, centrado en la evaluación de las actitudes de los profesionales (esencialmente encuadrados en los ámbitos de la sanidad y la educación) hacia las personas con discapacidad.…”