1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of Disability, Crime, and Justice

Edited By Stephen J. Macdonald, Donna Peacock Copyright 2025
602 Pages 19 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

602 Pages 19 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Offering an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex relationships between disability, crime, and victimisation, this comprehensive handbook gathers insights from leading scholars across diverse fields, including disability studies, criminology, history, sociology, forensic psychology, forensic psychiatry, and the neurosciences, who have conducted extensive research in these areas. Adopting... Read more

Section 1: Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Disability, Crime, and Justice

Chapter 1: Routledge Handbook of Disability, Crime, and Justice

Stephen. J. Macdonald and Donna Peacock

Chapter 2: Intersections between Disability Studies and Criminological Theory: Time for a Paradigm Shift?

Stephen. J. Macdonald and Donna Peacock

 

Section 2: Histories of Disability and Crime

Chapter 3: Cesare Lombroso and the Body in the Morgue

Paul Knepper

Chapter 4: Unfit for Labour: Histories of disability and ill-health in the Victorian prison

Helen Johnston and Jo Turner

Chapter 5: The Rise of the Victorian Asylum

Lauren Doyle

Chapter 6: The Road to Broadmoor: Mental Capacity and High Security

Mark Stevens

Chapter 7: Eugenics, Disability and Crime

Donna Peacock

Chapter 8: ‘A Definitive Neurasthenic Temperament?’: The Irish Great War Veteran and the Politicisation of Psychiatry

Michael Robinson

 

Section 3: Biomedical and Biopsychosocial Criminology

Chapter 9: Neurocriminology:  Using knowledge of brain structure and function to explain crime, substance abuse, and offending

Cody Jorgensen

Chapter 10: Online Terrorism Offenders with ADHD: In what ways can ADHD create contextual vulnerabilities and risk?

Zainab Al-Attar and Rachel Worthington

Chapter 11: Neurocriminology, ADHD, and intimate partner violence

Ángel Romero-Martínez

Chapter 12: Biopsychological Approaches to Impairment and Disability, Criminal Behaviour, and Vulnerability: Head Trauma, Imprisonment, and Rehabilitation

Ann Marie Leonard-Zabel

Chapter 13: Therapeutic Relationships in Personality Disorder

Andrew Shepherd

Chapter 14: Autism and Police Interviewing: An Individual, Interpersonal, and Environmental Model of Vulnerability

Ralph Bagnall and Katie Maras

 

Section 4: Structural Disability Criminology

Chapter 15: Disability, Limits of the Law and Pathways to Prison

Eileen Baldry (with research assistance by Declan Lee)

Chapter 16: Reporting Disability Hate

David Wilkin

Chapter 17: Disability Hate Crimes and Austerity: “The government hates disabled people”

Jane Healy

Chapter 18: Criminal justice responses to learning disabled and autistic victims of sexual violence in the UK

Helen Williams and Alison Jobe

Chapter 19: ‘It’d be the last resort you would ring the Guards’: disabled people’s perceptions and experiences of the police in the search for safe community spaces

Claire Edwards

Chapter 20: Neurodiversity in the Courtroom

Penny Cooper

Chapter 21: Transforming Care: The Role of Institutional Violence

Rebecca Fish

Chapter 22: Disabled people’s lived experiences of access to justice in the criminal justice system in the UK

Andrea Hollomotz and Mark Priestley

 

Section 5:  Cultural Disability Criminology

Chapter 23: Cripping Criminal In/Justice Practices

Ryan Thorneycroft with Nicole L. Asquith

Chapter 24: Landscapes of disability hate

Edward Hall

Chapter 25: Disability Hate Speech and Everyday Life

Leah Burch

Chapter 26: Structural approaches to disability, crime, and victimisation: experiences of d/Deaf individuals in the criminal justice system

Alexandra M. Zidenberg and Holly Blades

Chapter 27: ‘He was sadly a vulnerable young man with learning difficulties’: How the tabloid press represents and labels crimes against disabled people.

Ian Mathews

Chapter 28: Revisiting and reframing the controversial relationship between mental health and violence: Racial disproportionality and disparities of care

Samantha Weston and Julie Trebilcock

Chapter 29: “I'll Give You Justice”: Why the Use of Therapeutic Jurisprudence Is the Best Way to Eradicate Sanism in the Law. 

Michael L. Perlin

Chapter 30: Beyond Prison Reform: Ableism & Abolition

Jamelia N. Morgan

 

Section 6: Realist Disability Criminology

Chapter 31: A critical realist analysis of communication and engagement barriers for ‘vulnerable’ suspects in the police station

Donna Peacock and Patrick Hutchinson

Chapter 32: People with Multiple Sclerosis’s Experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse 

Kharis Hutchison

Chapter 33: Disablist Hate Relationships: The Impact of ‘Low-Level’ Forms of Community Violence on Disabled People’s Quality of Life

Stephen. J. Macdonald, Catherine Donovan, John Clayton and Carol Long

Chapter 34: Digital technology and violence against girls and women with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: Risks and resources for resilience

Zara Trafford, Karen Soldatić, Lieketseng Ned, and Xanthe Hunt

Chapter 35: Autism, interpersonal violence, and hate crime

Amy Pearson

Chapter 36: Disability and Child Violence

Nikki Rutter

Chapter 37: Disability Awareness: How Do Organisational Learning Theory and Experiential Learning Theory Support Law Enforcement Officers’ Interactions with People with Disabilities? 

Olga Vega

Chapter 38: Probation and Ageing

Nichola Cadet

 

Section 7: Conclusion

Chapter 39: Towards a Criminology of Disability

Stephen. J. Macdonald

Biography

Stephen J. Macdonald is Professor of Criminology and Disability Studies at Durham University. His research focuses on the intersections of disability, criminology, and adult services, emphasising violence against disabled populations, victimisation, criminality, and desistance. He also explores the interplay between disability and criminological theory.

Donna Peacock is Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice and Head of Social Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. Her research focuses on 'vulnerability' in police custody settings and the intersections between the disciplines of disability studies and criminology.