Police Contact with Young People with Cognitive Disabilities: Perceptions of Procedural (In)justice

Abstract

The interactions of police with young people with cognitive disabilities (YPWCD) have seldom been considered in research, even though this group is over-represented in the criminal justice system. This article presents the results of a qualitative study into YPWCD’s experiences with police in Queensland, Australia. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with service providers who work with YPWCD and YPWCD themselves. The procedural justice perspective was used as an analytic framework to provide an insight into YPWCD’s relationships with the police. Findings point to ways in which police can better respond to YPWCD in procedurally just ways, as well as to the role that family and service providers might play in supporting this outcome.

Keywords

cognitive disability police procedural justice young offenders

Introduction

Interaction with the police is often the first key element in the path of criminal justice encounters (Baker et al., 2014). Perceptions of police legitimacy among youth have warranted recent attention in the literature (e.g. Sindall et al., 2017). This is an important area of research because of the extensive contact young people have with the police (Murphy, 2015), the largely unsupervised nature of this contact (Cunneen et al., 2015) and the discretionary powers the police can exercise with youth (Schulenberg and Warren, 2009). According to Hinds (2009), negative experiences with the police may have a lasting influence on youth attitudes and behaviours towards authority, and may in turn act as a disincentive to cooperation and to reporting acts of victimisation. While the research interest is growing regarding young people and the police, there is still much to be learned about specific groups of young people and their police interactions.

Young People with Cognitive Disability and the Police

The experiences of young people with cognitive disabilities (YPWCD) with the police are one area that warrants further research attention. Cognitive disability in this article refers to a number of conditions in which a young person has ongoing challenges in intellectual functioning (including reasoning, problem solving and learning) and in adaptive skills (i.e. everyday social and practical abilities; Schalock et al., 2010). The term refers to intellectual impairment (particularly in the borderline, mild and moderate range; World Health Organization, 2017), autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Crane et al., 2016) and acquired brain injury (including foetal alcohol spectrum disorder; Gralton, 2014). The causal nature of cognitive difficulties may be unclear, and for many young people there may be co-occurring mental illness, which can further complicate diagnosis (Baldry et al., 2013).

Studies in Australia and elsewhere suggest that YPWCD are over-represented within the criminal justice system. In Australia, YPWCD, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (Baldry et al., 2016) have been shown to have disproportionate levels of contact with the criminal justice system. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2014), approximately 4 per cent of young men and 3 per cent of young women have an intellectual disability in Australia. In contrast, it was found that 14 per cent of young people had an intellectual disability in a custody health survey conducted in New South Wales (Indig et al., 2011). These figures would indicate that YPWCD are likely to have frequent contact with the police.

Many YPWCD in contact with the criminal justice system have a history of social disadvantage and exhibit behavioural responses deemed ‘too difficult’ for disability services (Ellem et al., in press). Compared with their same-aged peers, YPWCD are more likely to have poor health (Allerton et al., 2011), are at greater risk of poverty (Emerson and Spencer, 2015), are subject to greater stigmatisation and violence (Larkin et al., 2012) and are more likely to have poor educational and future employment outcomes (Young-Southward et al., 2016). Their lives may be further complicated by mental illness, problematic substance and alcohol use and, in the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, entrenched racism and discrimination (Baldry et al., 2016). Subsequently, YPWCD occupy an especially marginal position in their communities due to their multiple subordinate identities (Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach, 2008).

YPWCD may also have some behavioural characteristics associated with their impairment that lead to increased attention by the police. They may be socially naïve and therefore easily manipulated by others, have difficulty responding to changes in routine (particularly if the young person has some autistic traits), struggle with emotional regulation and moral reasoning and have poor insight into the implications of their behaviour (King and Murphy, 2014). The presence of psychiatric comorbidity and problematic substance use can compound these issues (Baldry et al., 2016).

When a YPWCD comes into contact with the police, communication difficulties can arise. They may have difficulty understanding events and have a limited knowledge of legal rights (Brown et al., 2016). YPWCD may be more likely to confess, acquiesce to police demands and fail to accurately recall important information (Bowles and Sharman, 2014). In addition, the young person may not disclose their disability to the police in order to avoid any stigmatising consequences (Scior et al., 2013).

In most jurisdictions in Australia, police are legally required to adapt procedures and protocols to accommodate individuals with impaired cognitive capacity. This can include adapting communication styles and obtaining the assistance of an independent person, as specified in the Queensland Police Service (QPS) Operational Procedures Manual (2017a). The literature however, points to several barriers to effective police responses to YPWCD. These include little or no training regarding recognising and responding to people with a disability (Mogavero, 2016), failure to follow best-practice communication guidelines when interviewing YPWCD (Agnew et al., 2006) and ‘hypersurveillance’ of young people who have a long history of offending (particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander YPWD in the Australian context; MacGillivray and Baldry, 2013). Police culture and attitudes may also influence outcomes for YPWCD (Paoline and Gau, 2017). While some authors have noted police officers’ concerns for the vulnerability of people with cognitive disability (Parsons and Sherwood, 2016), Hellenbach’s (2012) research found that some police officers regarded cognitive disability to be an illegitimate mitigation of an offender’s wrong-doing. In a study by Douglas and Cuskelly (2012), some police officers did not regard it as their responsibility to identify a person with cognitive disability, stating that this was a matter for the courts. How these issues affect the perceptions of police by YPWCD and those that support them has not been adequately explored in the literature. In the section that follows, an overview of the procedural justice perspective is provided as an analytical framework for understanding the relationship between YPWCD and the police.

Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy

A large body of criminological literature has found that an individual’s evaluation of legal authorities has bearing on the confidence and compliance with the law among offenders and non-offenders (see Mazerolle et al., 2013 for a review). The procedural justice perspective pays particular attention to procedural factors in police decision-making and their interpersonal responses to citizens and how this in turn may lead to more cooperative behaviour with authorities (Tyler et al., 2015). This perspective argues that if people view that they have been treated fairly by the police, this in turn can foster a belief in the legitimacy of law enforcement, and lead people to internalise a moral obligation to obey the law (Gau and Brunson, 2010). The procedural justice perspective has influenced police practice in many contexts, as evidenced in the QPS (2017b) Strategic Plan 2017–2021 that regards positive public perception of police as a performance indicator.

Tyler et al. (2015) proposed that perceptions of procedural justice are based on four relational criteria or antecedents of procedural justice: citizen participation, being treated with dignity and respect, neutrality and fairness in decision-making and trustworthiness of authorities.

Citizen participation in decision-making has been shown to have a positive influence on people’s perceptions of procedural justice (Tyler et al., 2015). Having a voice and being able to express views in police encounters, irrespective of the outcome, has been found to be highly regarded by community members.

Little is known about the degree of citizen participation for YPWCD in police encounters. However, the communicative and comprehension difficulties in police interviews previously mentioned would impact on YPWCD’s participation. A study of the perceptions of police encounters by the ASD community in England and Wales found that many ASD community participants found the context of the police interview and the lack of appropriate support led to breakdowns in communication (Crane et al., 2016).

In addition to the opportunity to explain their situation, being treated with dignity and respect by the police is also said to promote procedural justice (Tyler et al., 2015). Interpersonal treatment by the police that involves courtesy and recognition of the person’s social status is likely to be reassuring to the individual (Jonathan-Zamir et al., 2015).

Researchers have not explored in-depth the degree of respect afforded YPWCD in police interactions. Research with Queensland police by Douglas and Cuskelly (2012) found that many police participants identified people with intellectual disability by their ‘unattractive’ appearance, suggesting that some police officers may subscribe to dominant worldviews that assign people with cognitive disabilities into a devalued social category.

Positive perceptions of procedural justice with the police are also enhanced when police officers appear neutral and unbiased when they make decisions (Tyler et al., 2015). This involves using objective, legitimate criteria upon which to make decisions; applying fairness according to the rules set forth in law, and not allowing personal bias or views to influence choice (Jonathan-Zamir et al., 2015).

YPWCD may not always perceive they are being treated unfairly by legal authorities such as the police (Norris and Redlich, 2012). Many YPWCD may have a high level of regulation of their lives from others (Arstein-Kerslake and Flynn, 2017). In the context of a police encounter, this may lead to the young person acquiescing to police authorities and in some circumstances making false incriminating statements (Søndenaa et al., 2010). The failure to understand legal terminology, invoke legal rights and in some instances, understand the nature of a crime committed can all impact on perceptions of fair process for YPWCD (Nevins-Saunders, 2010).

Trustworthiness is the final criterion related to procedural justice. If police actions seem to be driven by genuine desires to help individual citizens and the broader community, then this can encourage positive evaluations of trustworthiness (Murphy et al., 2014).

Little is known about the degree of trust accorded to the police by YPWCD. Age in general has been found to be a strong predictor of attitudes to the police, with young people having less trust and confidence in the police than adults (Sindall et al., 2017). Minority populations, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, may be subjected to over-policing, which in turn, can undermine trust in authorities (Yang, 2015). Alternatively, some YPWCD may have a degree of social naivety that may lead to the unquestioning trust of authority (King and Murphy, 2014).

Given these findings, further research attention on YPWCD’s perceptions of procedural justice is warranted. This study examines the perspectives of the police by YPWCD and service providers who support young people.

Methodology

This study involved qualitative exploratory research on YPWCDs’ interactions with the police in Queensland. Approval to undertake the research was obtained through the Queensland University of Technology Human Research Ethics Committee (approval #1400000443). A purposive sampling approach was used to recruit service providers who work with YPWCD who have contact with the police – namely mainstream youth services, youth legal services, disability support services and disability employment services. Agencies that support young people from diverse cultural backgrounds, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people were specifically targeted, as young people from these marginalised groups are over-represented in the criminal justice system (Cunneen et al., 2015). In total, 21 individuals from organisations in South-east Queensland were interviewed (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Participants by type of service provided.

Interview no.	Type of service provided by agency
1 (Interviewee 1)	Youth legal
2 (Interviewees 2, 3 and 4)	General youth
3 (Interviewee 5)	Disability employment
4 (Interviewee 6)	Youth legal
5 (Interviewee 7)	Specialist youth
6 (Interviewee 8)	Specialist youth
7 (Interviewee 9)	General youth
8 (Interviewees 10, 11 and 12)	General youth
9 (Interviewees 13 and 14)	Disability support
10 (Interviewee 15)	Disability support
11 (Interviewee 16)	Disability support
12 (Interviewees 17 and 18)	Specialist legal
13 (Interviewee 19)	Disability support
14 (Interviewee 20)	Disability employment
15 (Interviewee 21)	Disability support

As there is no agency that provides services specifically to YPWCD in contact with the police in the South-east Queensland area, YPWCD typically comprised only a minority of an agency’s client group, and those who had experienced contact with the police, a minority within this group again. Thus, service provider participants typically reflected on only small numbers of YPWCD within their larger client groups.

Service providers were asked a loosely structured series of questions about YPWCDs’ contact with the police, including how contact with police had occurred for YPWCD, what the positive and negative aspects of this contact had been, and whether and how they believed having a cognitive impairment impacted on young people’s interactions with police.

This study also sought the views of YPWCD in relation to their interactions with the police. A non-probability sampling approach was again used. Service providers involved in the study were asked to recruit YPWCD who met the following criteria:

Be aged 15–20 years (in order to satisfy ethical requirements);

Have a cognitive disability (previously determined by the agency which provided support), and self-identify as such;

Have had contact with the police in the past due to a critical incident;

Be willing and able to participate in a semi-structured qualitative, face-to-face interview.

A plain English Participant Information and Consent Form (PICF), based on Ellem (2012), was developed to ensure information was comprehensible to YPWCD. However, recruiting YPWCD proved difficult. While we cannot know the precise reasons for this, it appeared to result from a combination of a lack of time and resourcing on the part of service provision agencies, the difficulties inherent in scheduling interviews with YPWCD, who may have relatively unstable lives, and practitioners’ desires to ‘protect’ YPWCD. Ultimately, three YPWCD were recruited into the study. While this is undoubtedly a small sample, and cannot be generalised, given the dearth of information on YPWCDs’ experiences with police – especially from their own points of view – the study is an important first step to furthering research in this area.

All YPWCD who participated had the option of having a support person present during the interview, and all three chose a support person from the referring agency. The presence of the support person helped young people to feel comfortable with the research process and to understand the questions being asked by the researchers. Two of the YPWCD who participated in the research were males (aged 18 and 19 and referred to as Justin and Lachlan (not their real names)); the remaining participant was a female (aged 19 and referred to as Ellie).

In addition to a series of questions about school, family and employment, designed both to build rapport with the young person and obtain some contextual information, YPWCD were asked a series of loosely structured open-ended questions about their contact with the police. As the young people interviewed did not openly discuss having a cognitive disability with the researchers, we instead asked the young people ‘How do you think the police should treat someone with a disability?’ and ‘What would you tell someone/what advice would you give someone with a disability who gets in trouble with the police?’ This approach was less intrusive and enabled YPWCD to reflect on the experiences without discussing their own disability in detail. All the young people requested not to have their interview audio-recorded, and as a result the researchers took handwritten notes of the interviews. These notes were later checked with the young people and their support person for accuracy where possible.

All interview transcripts and notes from interviews were de-identified and imported into qualitative data analysis software program NVIVO for coding and data analysis. After familiarisation of each transcript or research note, thematic analysis was undertaken, which involved searching and considering patterns in the data (Grbich, 2013). The findings that informed the topic of this article were a result of deductive coding, which involved detailed readings of the data according to predetermined themes (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005) – in this case, the broad categories of citizen participation, dignity and respect, fairness and neutrality, and trustworthiness. Following this, a more finely grained coding process was undertaken, in which subcategories in each of these broader categories were identified.

Findings

For young people generally, experiences of procedural justice shape their perceptions of the police, the legitimacy that they attribute to the police and, in turn, their willingness to cooperate with the police and obey the law (Hinds, 2009). The experiences of YPWCD, specifically from the perspectives of YPWCD themselves, and service providers who work with this group, are presented below.

Citizen participation

Police always handcuff me and put me in the police van… Police do not listen to me and give me attitude… This isn’t because people don’t understand me. It’s because they are mean.. They shout when you’re not listening. They talk over you. They say ‘shut up and be quiet’. (Ellie, YPWCD)

Ellie (a 19-year-old young woman with cognitive disability) clearly values having her voice heard and she perceives the police as punitive in their approach when they fail to listen to her. Her comments above speak of the importance of citizen participation in police interactions and its influence on perceived police legitimacy in YPWCD. As Ellie’s support worker commented, ‘Police tell Ellie what to do rather than listening to her story. They tell her what to do when she is already emotional and angry’.

Lachlan (a 19-year-old young man with cognitive disability) also expressed difficulties in having his concerns acknowledged by the police. He spoke of mixed responses from the police when reporting incidents of abuse. When he was under the care of the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women in a residential home, he reported to the police of an incident of physical assault and break and enter by other residents. He remembered the police taking photographs and fingerprints and telling him he could call them if it happened again. Another incident was less positive for Lachlan:

Another time I was being bashed and was bawling my eyes out and feeling scared. I had a nightmare. I called the police. They told me not to call them again or they would arrest me. I was really hurt by this. I never phoned them again.

Justin (an 18-year-old young man with cognitive disability) appeared to have a positive experience of citizen participation. He conveyed a story of being supported by his disability worker to make a statement to the police about a physical assault. He reported that the police were ‘nice’, gave him time to explain things and directed some questions to his worker, which he found helpful.

Adapting communication styles to accommodate the young person’s voice was considered vital by many service providers. Taking the time to understand a YPWCD was what could prevent a situation from escalating. A youth lawyer spoke of a young man in a therapeutic residential facility where escalation had occurred due to poor communication practices:

When he first saw the police he instinctively gets on to the fence to leave…the police then pull him down… the way he responds to the police, [was] probably inappropriate… and he kept saying ‘all I want to do is get up and play my basketball’, because that’s his coping mechanism… and they wouldn’t let him up. They just push him harder down and he just responds accordingly and the whole thing escalates. (Interviewee 1)

Two other service providers believed that many police did not regard YPWCD as good witnesses and felt they were unlikely to pursue matters in which young people were victimised. One disability support worker in a regional area spoke of a female YPWCD who had told others that her father was interfering with her: ‘When we…talked to the police their attitude was “oh, she just makes up stories”… and wouldn’t do anything about it’ (Interviewee 16).

Service providers also indicated that complaint processes against the police were usually not effective for YPWCD. Three participants from youth services and community legal services stated that YPWCD did not follow through with complaints even with support. This was seen as largely due to fear of consequences, such as further attention by the police, and YPWCD’s inability to prove poor practice when there were no witnesses present. A youth lawyer spoke of potential retribution for making a complaint: ‘You honestly have to say to a young person you can’t guarantee that that won’t happen’ (Interviewee 1).

Several service providers talked about the importance of having a support person present in police interviews with YPWCD to ensure the young person understands the process. However, this strategy did not always guarantee adequate participation by the young person. One disability worker reported on a home visit to a female YPWCD who was being charged by the police. The worker informed the police the young woman had a disability and asserted that she did not know her legal rights. She was dismayed when the police officers stated that they didn’t care (Interviewee 13). A lawyer from a community legal centre also raised concerns that third parties, such as residential care workers, Justices of the Peace or parents, were not always able to advise YPWCD about whether they should disclose certain matters, and were not sufficiently independent from the situation.

The findings from this research align with other studies regarding the communicative difficulties present in police interactions with YPWCD. It appears that the failure to make appropriate accommodations to ensure YPWCD have a voice can lead to negative perceptions of police.

Dignity and respect

Closely related to participation in police encounters is being treated with dignity and respect by such authorities. Lachlan recounted an experience of feeling disrespected by the police. He had been issued with a Domestic Violence Order (DVO) and a Peace and Good Behaviour Bond and was due to appear in court:

They [the police] just shoved the paperwork in my face. They told me I needed to go to court at this time. When I tried to communicate with police, it was too hard and they didn’t tell me much about the DVO… It would have been better if police had explained it to me. I found it hard to understand what was going on. No one helped me. (Lachlan, YPWCD)

Both Ellie and Lachlan suggested that respect involved making allowances and giving second chances. Ellie described her ‘one good experience’ with the police when she was homeless and on a train without a ticket: ‘They let me off but told me I just got away with it. I know this was a warning not to do it again’. Lachlan similarly described being apprehended by the police on a train and being issued a warning for fare evasion: ‘These police [unlike others Lachlan has interacted with] were not mean’.

Service providers referred to actions as being respectful when police authorities actively sought to develop some rapport with the young person, were considered in their use of power and authority, made an active effort to understand how a person’s disability may impact on the situation and provided information to the young person in a clear and accessible way.

How police officers used their powers was also related to notions of dignity and respect. A disability worker in a regional area gave one positive example of respectful treatment. A police officer was able to work effectively with an Aboriginal YPWCD, by ‘spending the time to listen’ and talking to the young person ‘on his level’ (Interviewee 16). A similar account was given by a manager of a disability service, who supported a YPWCD who had become agitated in a special school environment. Although the police officers had handcuffed the young person, this action was counterbalanced by use of reassuring communication to the young person, with no suggestion of laying charges: ‘They saw it for what it was which just was a very upset young man who just reached boiling point but didn’t really understand what was going on’. (Interviewee 21)

A specialist youth service provider conveyed less positive experiences when calling upon the police to intervene. A young person with autism had become aggressive with staff at the youth programme when his routine had been broken. This young person was known to be hypersensitive to physical touch. The worker had tried to convey to the police that the young person had a disability when five police arrived, but ‘didn’t get a chance to do it that day’ (Interviewee 8). Someone else had made the initial phone call and the worker wasn’t aware what information had been passed on: ‘That was quite a horrible experience to see as well, because he [young person] didn’t understand… So they had the TASERs out… they just came around and reacted’ (Interviewee 8). The service in this incident did not press charges but the young person ‘was cuffed and thrown to the ground’ (Interviewee 8).

Understanding the young person’s disability and its impact can be crucial where the police need to give instructions in a crisis situation. The following example, given by a youth lawyer, highlights the importance of the police using clear communication with YPWCD:

The police had pulled TASERs and they’re screaming at her to get the knife out [of her mouth]… I think they were actually saying to put the knife on the ground and kick it over to them… And so she was charged with obstructing the police for not obeying their instruction… But from what I know about this young person, that series of instructions are way beyond [her]. (Interviewee 6)

Poor examples of the use of police authority included accounts of unnecessary physical force, use of threats and verbal put-downs. A disability worker reported that a young woman with autism was accused of cyberbullying and was threatened by the police. These accusations were proved false, but as a result of her interactions with the police, the young woman’s behaviour became ‘erratic’ and ‘hysterical’ (Interviewee 14). She was regularly bedwetting and experiencing severe anxiety leaving the house.

Two youth workers recalled instances where they observed police officers ‘trying to provoke young people into a reaction’ (Interviewee 2), including the use of racial slurs. The following incident, observed by Interviewee 3 during youth outreach work, provides a further example:

Two police just drove into where everyone hangs out, told one person to take off their jumper, it was like one of the coldest nights… didn’t explain why, but just said it was for evidence and then left… and the person they took the jumper off has a massive, like, intellectual disability…

A disability worker in a regional area described the police who showed disrespect by their attitudes: ‘I’m a police man and I have power and I walk around with the laser [sic]…and the gun on the hip’ (Interviewee 16). She felt such attitudes originated from new recruits who had a lack of experience in the police role, or more experienced police who were ‘just burnt out’ from their work. This worker questioned whether some police were motivated to learn and adapt their communication styles. In addition, three service providers felt that the police would not necessarily believe a young person had a disability if the young person had a mild cognitive impairment and appeared articulate. As one explained: ‘We can tell them till the cows come home… because you can’t see the intellectual disability…they don’t accept it, I guess’ (Interviewee 16).

Fairness and neutrality

I am picked on by police in some suburbs more than others…At [suburb] there are only 10 police officers and they have all seen me before. The police at [a different suburb] keep looking at me when my friends and I go past. (Ellie, YPWCD)

Ellie describes here how she felt unfairly targeted by the police in particular suburbs in Brisbane. She explained that she was ‘picked on’ in these areas and felt police officers watching her and her friends when they were in close proximity to the officers, and that the police are ‘always’ giving her court cases and fines.

The ability of the police to act objectively and fairly with YPWCD in trouble with the law was called into question by many service providers in this study. Two participants (one from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service and the other from a youth service for LGBT young people) provided examples where police actions were influenced by feelings of frustration. The frustration seemed to arise when a YPWCD repeatedly engaged in the same problem behaviour, which would then result in a more punitive response from the police, often leading to arrest and containment in a police cell. Service provider participants also attributed police frustration to a lack of understanding of behaviour arising from the young person’s disability (e.g. hypersensitivity to noise when a young person has autism), as well as lack of acknowledgement by the police about the ongoing social disadvantage the young person had experienced.

Some service providers cited examples where YPWCD were targeted due to other factors than disability, suggesting the multiplicative nature of young people’s disadvantage (Smooth, 2013). YPWCD came to police attention on the basis of race, appearance, the suburb/area and the number of previous contacts they had with the police: ‘…you just have to be Aboriginal-looking, … one of these people that are, kind of, “lower class”, I suppose, and they will pick on you, you just have to walk on the street’ (Interviewee 18). Similarly, it was felt by one disability worker that YPWCD in urban areas were targeted less than those in rural and regional areas because ‘it’s harder to find them’ (Interviewee 16) in areas with a denser population.

Some service providers did refer to positive examples of the police acting fairly and neutrally with YPWCD. A youth worker spoke of previous work in another jurisdiction, where police officers, knowing that a young person had a cognitive disability, took the time to explain the consequences of the young person’s behaviours and gave him options (e.g. ‘if you don’t come with us now, we will restrain you’; Interviewee 12).

Trustworthiness

The degree to which the police are considered trustworthy by YPWCD is likely to depend on numerous factors. Justin’s perception of police and their willingness to help changed over time. He reported that his parents had told him to trust the police and to go to them if he had a problem. The police had also come to his primary school to educate children on the role of the police. Both these influences helped Justin to see the police in a positive light. His view changed when he witnessed his father, after a ‘disagreement’ with his girlfriend, get tackled to the ground by police officers. Justin recounted that his father had sustained a serious back injury from the incident. However, a recent experience of being physically assaulted by another man and being successfully supported by his disability worker to make a statement to the police helped Justin to again view the police as helpful.

Service providers regarded the police positively if they took into account a young person’s disability and, wherever possible, looked for alternatives to pressing formal charges against the young person. A disability service manager cited several examples of how the police made accommodations once informed that a young person had a disability. A young man with Prader Willi syndrome (a compulsive eating disorder) had stolen lollies from a service station, but was not charged, only asked to pay for the lollies. Accounts of other young people involving noise disturbance and sexualised behaviour resulted in the police cautioning the individuals once it was established that they had a disability.

In contrast, some service providers were critical of the police for not pursuing alternative avenues to arrest. Lawyers from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service reported that the police rarely offered a youth justice conference for young people who committed minor offences and that junior police officers served to benefit in their career if they pressed formal charges: ‘ticks for juniors is public nuisance, obstruct police. Easy!’ (Interviewee 17). A regional disability worker could not recall if the Aboriginal YPWCD she supported had ever received a caution from the police. This worker explained: ‘So if they can lock him up they think that’s very good. They don’t have to deal with it’ (Interviewee 16). A lawyer from a community legal service spoke of a young woman with cognitive disability who broke her curfew and bail conditions at a residential facility and locked herself in a car outside the home. The police were called and they charged the young woman with unlawful use of a motor vehicle, which the lawyer reported as ‘amazing’’ (Interviewee 6).

Some examples of unethical behaviour by police were raised by service providers. It is unclear how such claims were substantiated, but the examples reflect a lack of trust of the police on the part of agencies. Examples included police failing to have an independent third party present in interviews, failing to inform young people of their legal rights, pushing a young person with brain injury to confess to committing assault when there was no evidence, telling a pregnant 14-year-old young woman with cognitive disability that it was ‘okay’ for her to have sex with her boyfriend because she consented and asking another young woman with cognitive disability whether she had any genital piercings as a means of gathering profiling information.

While these examples point to a lack of trust in the police, participants also raised the problem of some YPWCD placing too much trust in the police. A youth worker relayed concerns about a YPWCD: ‘He also has really poor insight into relationships… so he might think that a police officer is really great and helps him out all the time, but actually they’ve been the ones who have been advocating for him to be arrested’ (Interviewee 2). This attitude towards the police was present even though the young person had a previous experience of significant injury (his jaw broken) during an arrest.

Discussion

Young people’s experiences of procedural justice shape their perceptions of the police, the legitimacy that they attribute to the police and therefore their willingness to obey the law (Hinds, 2009). This study of procedural justice was exploratory in nature and draws largely upon secondary accounts from service providers about YPWCD’s experiences with the police. Our findings suggest that YPWCD place value on having their voices heard and being listened to in their interactions with the police, being responded to with dignity and respect, and being treated fairly by the police. YPWCD’s experiences in this regard in turn shape their perceptions of police trustworthiness and legitimacy. Service providers and YPWCD perceive procedural justice to occur in police encounters when the police take the time to listen to YPWCD, give YPWCD adequate time to explain what happened, utilise support workers or other independent third parties when interviewing YPWCD, attempt to develop rapport with YPWCD, provide information and explain things to YPWCD in a clear and accessible manner, provide the YPWCD with options and avoid unnecessary force, threats and insults. In other words, YPWCD and service providers perceive procedural justice to occur when the police make an effort to understand how cognitive disability might impact the situation and the young person’s response, and respond appropriately on the basis of this understanding. As Lachlan puts it: ‘Police don’t care if I have a disability or not. But they should care, especially by helping me understand things’.

While the findings from this study report examples of effective strategies with YPWCD, there were many instances where this did not routinely occur in practice. There were some accounts of a police culture that was coercive and distrustful to young people as a whole. This culture may be more problematic for YPWCD because of the added complexity of their disability. Many participants implied from their accounts a lack of police knowledge and at times unhelpful attitudes towards disability, which aligns with other studies (Hellenbach, 2012; Mogavero, 2016). The study did not set out to determine the extent to which negative police interactions do regularly occur with YPWCD in Queensland. However, the findings point to a number of recommendations to improve police interaction with this group. These are discussed below.

Our data suggest that some police may actively resist acknowledging a young person’s CD, and therefore simply informing the police about the additional needs of YPWCD is unlikely to be sufficient to improve their interactions with this group. There is instead a need for a multi-pronged approach that includes the following:

Improving police attitudes towards PWCD and young people generally. This is vital as police attitudes inform their exercise of discretion, and prior research has found that the police can hold poor perceptions of PWCD (Douglas and Cuskelly, 2012) and can hold negative views of young people (Drury and Dennison 2002);

Equipping the police with knowledge about both PWCD and youth via enhanced police education and training. Such training requires officer ‘buy-in’ and systematic evaluation (Spencer et al., 2016). Strategies that involve police-led training appear to be more effective than those delivered from someone outside the agency (Tallon et al., 2016).

Providing adequate resources, including time and support, to the police in order to enable the application of this education and training. The establishment of specialist multijurisdictional police units for working with PWCD will also help achieve this aim (Alach et al., 2012).

Developing relevant strategies to identify cognitive impairment in the first instance (Young et al., 2013). Section 6.3.2 of the QPS (2017a) Operational Procedural Manual specifies that a police officer needs to establish whether a special need exists when interviewing a person, but does not refer to specific assessment tools to establish cognitive impairment (QPS, 2017a). Tools such as the Child and Adolescent Intellectual Disability Screening Questionnaire (CAIDS-Q) (McKenzie et al., 2012) have the potential to identify the need for reasonable adjustments in responding to YPWCD if time and space are given to their administration. Appropriate identification and response is also often reliant on information from others who know the YPWCD well (Spivak and Thomas, 2013), who may not always be available at the time of police contact. Nonetheless, our findings highlight the importance of police agencies prioritising police access to and familiarisation with such resources; and

the creation of Key Performance Indicators that specifically promote procedurally just policing of marginalised and vulnerable groups including YPWCD. Currently, performance indicators which seek to strengthen relationships with the community do not emphasise specific vulnerable groups (QPS, 2017b). As Stubbs’ (2010) work on young people more broadly suggests, police are responsive to such performance measures, and

improving the accessibility of the complaints system to YPWCD both in regard to complaints made to QPS directly and those lodged with the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC; the statutory body which has oversight of the police sector; Crime and Corruption Commission, 2016). This would involve the provision of plain English resources regarding complaints processes (Parsons and Sherwood, 2016) and further resourcing of independent advocacy services for young people.

It must be acknowledged in addition to these recommendations that other groups besides the police, such as disability support workers and family members, can play a vital role in supporting YPWCD to experience procedurally just interactions with the police. Participants in our research also spoke of the important role of police liaison officers who are employed by QPS to assist communication between community members and the police (QPS, 2015). Our research points out many benefits of having an appropriate adult present to assist in police interviews with YPWCD (see further Richards and Ellem, 2018). However, support persons may lack sufficient legal knowledge or the ability to obtain such knowledge, and may negatively influence outcomes for the YPWCD. Therefore, to ensure experiences of procedural justice for YPWCD, police agencies could invest in specialised training for the police to ensure support persons are truly independent (Spivak and Thomas, 2013). Legislative changes could also be made to the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld) to ensure an independent person is accompanied by a solicitor.

Finally, service organisations as a whole need to become more conversant with police procedures and relevant legal knowledge. Agencies could actively build connections with the local police and community legal centres to minimise YPWCD’s adverse contact with the criminal justice system and ensure procedurally just experiences for this group.

Conclusion

This study examined perceptions of procedural justice experiences among one marginalised group in the community that experiences disproportionate police contact: YPWCD. Given the exploratory nature of this study, further research is needed in this area, particularly studies that capture the voice of YPWCD. Our findings suggest that procedural justice is important to this group of young people, but is not always experienced when YPWCD interact with the police. Promoting procedurally just police practices is critical to ensuring that YPWCD have better relationships with authority, to de-escalate potentially adverse interactions between YPWCD and the police, and to foster the development and maintenance of safe and just communities. Any improvement in police relationships with YPWCD is also likely to result in improved relationships with other marginalised groups of young people.

Of course it must be acknowledged that there are a range of impediments for the police seeking to provide procedurally just experiences to YPWCD. Chief among these is the capacity and willingness of the police to identify that a young person has cognitive disability/ies. Police training in this regard is thus a key recommendation of this study, as noted above. Such training would require police leadership, and need to be implemented by the police, for the police, in order to maximise effectiveness. In addition, service providers who support YPWCD have a part to play in fostering ongoing relationships with the police. The potential gains are worth pursuing, with young people and their families, the police and the broader community standing to benefit from an increased focus on procedural justice.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge all service providers who participated in the study and/or supported the research. The research assistance of Dr Nancy Taita Grevis-James, Ms Justine Hotten and Ms Tiffany Schneider is also gratefully acknowledged. We are also thankful for the helpful feedback provided by the anonymous reviewers of this article, as well as input from Dr Toby Miles-Johnson from the School of Justice at Queensland Universi.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Queensland Centre for Social Science Innovation.

ORCID iDs

Kathy Ellem

Kelly Richards

Author biographies

Kathy Ellem is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Queensland. Her research interests are young people and adults with cognitive disability and other complex support needs who are in contact with the criminal justice system and inclusive research methodologies with people with disability.

Kelly Richards is a Senior Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, Faculty of Law, School of Justice. Her research interests include youth justice, restorative justice and sexual offending.

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