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Abstract

Persons with mental retardation are a small but increasing portion of the population under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system. In most states, that system makes little or no allowance for the disabilities of such offenders, resulting in dispositions that are inequitably harsh and in all likelihood costlier to the public than need be the case. Those are the conclusions reached by Joan Petersilia in a recent review of the evidence bearing on this issue. Petersilia is a researcher in RAND's Criminal Justice Program and Professor of Criminology at the University of California, Irvine. This brief summarizes the basis for her conclusions.

Persons with mental retardation are usually defined as those with an IQ below 70, but practically speaking, such persons can be described with fair accuracy as having a childlike quality of thinking, coupled with slowness in learning new material. Mentally retarded persons have little long-term perspective and little ability to understand the consequences of their actions. They are usually followers and are easily manipulated. (The mentally retarded are not typically mentally ill; mental illness can strike persons at any level of intellectual functioning.)