This one-day conference offers a practice-focused examination of how persons with invisible disabilities (PWID) encounter the criminal justice system, and how practitioners and caregivers can respond more effectively. Bringing together leading lawyers, clinicians, and social service professionals, the programme will cover the challenges that PWID face in the criminal justice system, and how practitioners and caregivers can help PWID learn and understand legal limits of their actions and behaviour.
Sessions on lived experience, including autism and dementia, situate legal issues within real-world contexts, while multidisciplinary panels explore how investigative and trial processes might better account for vulnerability without compromising fairness. Practitioners will benefit from focused discussions on legal education for PWID, fitness to plead, and comparative perspectives on PWID and the criminal justice system.
