Supporting Transitions to Adult Services in the Criminal Justice System

Gemma Buckland, Policy Adviser for the Criminal Justice Acquired Brain Injury Group and Project Manager for UKABIF’s Barrow Cadbury Project and Karene Taylor, Researcher for the Barrow Cadbury Project presented a poster entitled ‘Understanding of acquired brain injury in police custody suites’ at The Howard League’s Conference on 13th and 14th September.

The poster highlighted that few forces explicitly look for historic acquired brain injury in their assessments and most only have training in first aid brain injury and broader training is focused on other neurodiverse conditions such as ADHD or autism.

The event -  entitled Crime, Justice and the Human Condition: Beyond the cris(es) – reframing and reimagining justice, took place at Keeble College, Oxford University and aimed to provide an opportunity to reimagine how the penal system should work.

Gemma Buckland said, ‘UKABIF is seeking to better understand what processes are in place to support young adults with an ABI in the early stages of the criminal justice system. Police, nurses, and liaison and diversion teams working in custody suites have an important role to play in identifying the need for that support so that it has a better chance of happening.’

We are grateful to The Barrow Cadbury Trust for supporting this research project. If you would like to find out more about the Criminal Justice Acquired Brain Injury Group please get in touch.