Correlates of Police Policies for Persons With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD): An Organizational Analysis

Persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are disproportionately affected by both violent crime and police misuse of force. Despite this, there is limited organizational knowledge around policing policies relating to this community. The current study employs data from the 2020 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey ( n = 2063) to examine whether organizational characteristics such as size, number of specialized units, and the extent to which the organization solicits community input on policing issues are associated with odds of possessing a formal written policy relating to persons with IDD. Findings suggest that factors relating to community policing and the formulation of policies for other specialized subpopulations were associated with odds of organizations maintaining such policies. There is a need to develop more nuanced policies which reflect the diversity of this community while also ensuring that stakeholders from the disability community are involved as co-producers of policies.