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full screen In a new report, around 500 judgments against people with intellectual disabilities have been reviewed. Archive image. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT
People with intellectual disabilities are exploited in scams and pressured to store drugs and weapons.
Despite a child’s cognitive level, many are judged as adults, according to Acta Publica.
In a newly released report, the research company Acta Publica has gone through nearly 500 judgments against people with intellectual disabilities between 2019 and 2023. It concerns nearly 700 individuals, of which 90 are repeat offenders who have been examined more deeply.
The report contains a number of examples of how disabled people are used in fraud or as corporate targets in financial crime. Others are pressured to store money and weapons.
The Criminal Code allows a reduced sentence for crimes committed through coercion or abuse of “youth, lack of understanding or dependent position”. But despite cognition at the level of a child, in every fourth judgment there is nothing to show that the court took such consideration.
Arbitrary
In cases where consideration is taken, according to Acta Publica, there are often formulations that the person should have understood despite his intellectual disability.
The arbitrariness, one notes, is striking.
“Some of the defendants have such a low level of functioning that it raises the question of whether the judiciary is really the right place to deal with the events that led to the prosecution,” it writes further.
“Very inappropriate”
Until 1991, intellectually disabled people could be sentenced to care in specially adapted institutions, but since 30 years ago the usual penalty rules apply: prison or, in some cases, forensic psychiatric care.
This, states Acta Publica, at the same time as a government investigation concluded that it is in many cases “very inappropriate” because the people’s special needs cannot be met.
One hundred of the people included in the review have been sentenced to prison and 25 to a forensic psychiatric facility with a special discharge examination.
FACTS Intellectual disability
An intellectual disability (previously called developmental disability) is permanent and involves difficulties with understanding and learning and is usually divided into four levels – mild, moderate, severe and very severe.
To understand the different levels, they are equated with the cognitive development level a person is expected to have in adulthood:
Mild (9–12 years): Lives a fairly independent life, some have wage subsidy employment and their own family but need some support with finances. Psychosocial difficulties occur.
Moderate (6–8 years): Basic school skills, can read simple text, has some social independence as a child of low school age.
Difficult (3–5 years): Can do about what a preschooler can do, but not writing and reading.
Very severe (0–2 years): Unable to dress and go to the toilet independently. Language skills as a young child.
Source: 1177, Region Uppsala
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