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Why Australia’s prison system can be ‘terrifying’ for people with an intellectual disability
A new website aiming to help people with intellectual disabilities get fairer outcomes in the criminal justice system is about to be launched in Victoria.
Here, a former inmate tells SBS News why the support matters.
- Evan Young
- SBS
It wasn’t until Claudia* was in custody in her 30s that she realised she’d been living with a disability for decades.
“I became aware of a big change in me when I was 17, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” the 48-year-old told SBS News.
Twenty years later, as she was entering prison, she was diagnosed with an acquired brain injury (ABI), a condition caused by post-birth damage to the brain and which affects cognitive skills and…