Systemic Barriers in PEI’s Justice System Exposed: How Historical Exclusion and Structural Design Flaws Disproportionately Impact People with Intellectual Disabilities—and What Cross-Cultural Models Can Teach Us
Original framing: “PEI workshops aim to make justice system more accessible for people with intellectual disabilities” — bing news
The exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities from justice systems is not a modern issue but a product of historical policies like institutionalisation and eugenics, which targeted this population in the 19th and 20th centuries. These policies created deep-seated distrust in legal and medical systems, as well as a legacy of segregation that persists today. The PEI workshops, while well-intentioned, fail to address how these historical traumas shape current interactions between people with ID and the justice system. Without confronting this history, reforms risk repeating past failures by treating symptoms rather than root causes.
The PEI workshops represent a superficial attempt to address systemic exclusion in the justice system, masking deeper structural failures rooted in colonial ableism and historical policies like institutionalisation.
By focusing on workshops as the solution, the narrative obscures how legal frameworks were designed to exclude people with intellectual disabilities, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and miscommunication. Cross-cultural models, such as Indigenous restorative justice practices, offer alternatives that prioritise community healing and inclusion, but these are ignored in favour of incremental reforms. Scientific research on cognitive accessibility further reveals that true change requires redesigning legal processes to be inherently inclusive, not just adding accommodations. The voices of marginalised communities—who live with the consequences of these failures—are also absent, despite being essential to meaningful reform. Without addressing these elements, PEI risks perpetuating cycles of exclusion under the guise of progress. The path forward lies in dismantling ableist structures, centering marginalised voices, and adopting restorative justice models that challenge the punitive foundations of the current system.