Separating the " Sad " from the " Bad " !

It appears that New South Wales is giving up on a plan to to divert those suffering intellectual disabilities and brain injuries from serving time in the prison system,.  In 2017 it embarked on the Congenitive Impairment  Diversion Programme (CIDP} in Penrith and Gosford local courts.  This was extendced to June this year, when funding will expire.

It has now been decided that funding will not be renewed.  In the first twelve months of the scheme  sixty-eight percent of participants were diverted from the criminal justice system.   Just seven percent of the 180 participants appearing before the court received a prison sentence.

Alleged offenders found by the programmes neuropsychologists to have a cognitive impairment are connected with support services, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme ( NDIS ).   This helps lower the cost of the prison system and removes the mentally deficient from the stress and danger when hardened criminals impose on their lack of acumen.

Almost forty five percent of participants  had an intellectual disability,  22 percent had an acquired brain injury and 13 percent had a borderline intellectual function.  Critics of the prison sysem have long contended that prison serves as an alternative to our lack of adequate medical services to treat people with degenerative brain functions.

This was a practical approach to separate the " bad " frm the " sad ".  It cost $1.2 million for the fifteen months to September, 2018 and that will be more than matched by the increased number of prisoners held in NSW prisons when the scheme ends.

A Department of Communities and Justice spokesman  said "there hase been  positive results under the programme" but " the current model is not appropriate to expand to other locations, and deliver other services provided by the government ".

A lot of people are ending up in prison for want of appropriate disability supporty.  CIDP workers  navigate alleged offenders tjhrough ther hoops of the NDIS and court processes.  Some will contend that this programme has become a victim of the spending needs to ease the economy back to work after the ravages of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Sounds like CIDP just got shoved back into the " too hard " basket.   The families of the mentally disabled will despair that an uncaring system will again consign them to the prisons, until they do their time and emerge - to reoffend and face another court which sends them back to prison.