Coming out of the darkness: America's criminal justice system and persons with intellectual disabilities in the 20th century.
Historical abuse patterns give BCBAs leverage to demand smaller, community-based options for justice-involved clients with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Delong (2007) tells the 20th-century story of people with intellectual disabilities in U.S. courts, jails, and prisons.
The paper walks through decades of forced sterilization, wrongful convictions, and abuse inside large state institutions.
It is a narrative review, not a new experiment, so it pulls together old court records, news reports, and state documents.
What they found
The review shows that for most of the 1900s, the system treated people with ID as both dangerous and disposable.
Judges, police, and prison staff rarely knew what ID meant, so the same person could be locked up for years without charges or supports.
How this fits with other research
Salmi et al. (2010) extends the timeline: after 1988, small community homes (<7 residents) grew from 29% to 73% of placements, showing the move away from the giant abusive settings Robert describes.
Joslyn et al. (2018) looks at secure treatment units today and finds decent quality of care—an apparent contradiction until you see the setting change: these are small, specialized, well-staffed facilities, not the overcrowded warehouses of the past.
Wolfensberger (2011) acts as a successor, listing 20 predictions for even more integrated housing and cost-justified supports, building on the historical groundwork Robert laid.
Why it matters
Knowing this history helps you spot red flags in current placements and court plans. If a prosecutor pushes for a large, distant "special unit," you can cite Robert’s data and push instead for Joslyn-style small secure care or Patricia-style community homes. Use the past to protect your client tomorrow.
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Join Free →Open the discharge plan for any justice-involved client—if it lists a large out-of-state facility, email the team a one-page summary of Robert (2007) and suggest a local 6-bed secure treatment unit instead.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
I was born in 1927. That was the year Charles Lindbergh flew to Paris and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. These high points remain vivid in my memory. Later, however, I became aware of two other happenings that plunged hundreds of my human brothers and sisters into a terrible dark and dismal slough of despondance. In 1927, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle). In it he called for the cleansing of the human stock of the world. He cried out for the building of a super race. He wrote:
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2007 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556(2007)45[216:COOTDA]2.0.CO;2