Intellectual disability, also known as mental retardation, is a term used when there are lifelong limits to a person's ability to learn at an expected level and function in daily life. It is characterized by three criteria: significantly subaverage intellectual functioning; concurrent and related limitations in two or more adaptive skill areas; and manifestation before age eighteen. -Human Rights Watch
Intellectual disability can be caused by a problem that starts any time before a child turns 18 years old – even before birth. It can be caused by injury, disease, or a problem in the brain. For many children, the cause of their intellectual disability is not known. Some of the most common known causes of intellectual disability – like Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, fragile X syndrome, genetic conditions, birth defects, and infections – happen before birth. Others happen while a baby is being born or soon after birth. Still other causes of intellectual disability do not occur until a child is older; these might include serious head injury, stroke, or certain infections.
Usually, the more severe the degree of intellectual disability, the earlier the signs can be noticed. However, it might still be hard to tell how young children will be affected later in life.
There are many signs of intellectual disability. For example, children with intellectual disability may:
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sit up, crawl, or walk later than other children
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learn to talk later, or have trouble speaking
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find it hard to remember things
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have trouble understanding social rules
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have trouble seeing the results of their actions
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have trouble solving problems
Mental Retardation and Crime
Although people with mental retardation constitute somewhere between 2.5 and 3 percent of the U.S. population, experts estimate they may constitute between 2 and 10 percent of the prison population. The disproportionate number of persons with mental retardation in the incarcerated population most likely reflects the fact that people with this impairment who break the law are more likely to be caught, more likely to confess and be convicted, and less likely to be paroled.
As with people of normal intelligence, many factors can prompt people with mental retardation to commit crimes, including unique personal experiences, poverty, environmental influences and individual characteristics. Attributes common to mental retardation may, in particular cases, also contribute to criminal behavior. The very vulnerabilities that cause problems for people with mental retardation in the most routine daily interactions can, at times, lead to tragic violence.
Many people with mental retardation are picked upon, victimized and humiliated because of their disability. The desire for approval and acceptance and the need for protection can lead a person with mental retardation to do whatever others tell him. People with mental retardation can fall prey when people with greater intelligence decide to take advantage of them, and they become the unwitting tools of others. Many of the cases in which people with mental retardation have committed murder involved other participants -- who did not have mental retardation -- and/or occurred in the context of crimes, often robberies, that were planned or instigated by other people. As one expert in mental retardation has noted, "Most people with mental retardation don't act alone. They are usually dependent. They are never the ringleader or the leader of a gang."
People with mental retardation may also engage in criminal behavior because of their characteristically poor impulse control, difficulty with long-term thinking, and difficulty handling stressful and emotionally fraught situations. They may not be able to predict the consequences of their acts or resist a strong emotional response. The homicides committed by people with mental retardation acting alone are almost without exception unplanned, spur of the moment acts of violence in the context of panic, fear, or anger, often committed when another crime, such as a robbery, went wrong. For example, William Smith, I.Q. 65, tried to take money from "old Dan," a friendly elderly storekeeper he had known all his life. When Dan resisted, Smith panicked and lashed out, killing him.
Low intellectual skills and limited planning capacities mean that people who have mental retardation are more likely than people of normal intelligence to get caught if they commit crimes. As a result, they make good "fall guys" for more sophisticated criminals. A suspect with mental retardation is also less likely to know how to avoid incriminating himself, hire a lawyer and negotiate a plea. |
