Timetable

10 July, 2025

11 July, 2025

Keynote

Dis/ableist Criminology: Rethinking Disability, Crime and Victimisation

Prof Stephen J Macdonald, Durham University

Research on disability within the fields of crime and victimisation has historically been framed through a bio-medical lens, pathologising the relationship between disability, crime, and victimisation. As Shaw et al. (2012) observe, disability in criminological research has largely been treated as a health issue, with limited acknowledgement of disabled people’s minority status. This has resulted in the intersectional factors of disability being insufficiently examined concerning victimisation and criminality. This study draws on data from the authors’ previous research on disabled offender populations, detainees, and victims to critically analyse the structural factors that exclude, marginalise, and alienate disabled individuals within their communities. Adopting a social harm approach, the study examines how disabled people are often situated in areas of high deprivation with limited resources, creating structural ‘spaces of vulnerability.’ These spaces disproportionately affect certain disabled groups, particularly neurodivergent individuals and those with mental health conditions, increasing their risk of victimisation and/or engagement in offending behaviour. The paper argues that disabled people share cultural parallels with other minoritised groups in the criminal justice system, challenging the notion that their overrepresentation is due to pathological or neurological ‘defects’ or ‘deficits.’ Instead, it attributes this overrepresentation to social exclusion, marginalisation, and the dis/ableist structures inherent in the criminal justice system. By introducing disability theory to criminology and social harm studies, this paper seeks to offer a new framework for understanding the marginalisation of disabled offenders and victim populations.

12 July, 2025