This forum facilitates exchange of participants of the project "Open Research behind Closed Doors: Assessing the impact of Covid-19 measures on persons deprived of liberty with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities
The Coronavirus pandemic has had an immense impact on the lives of millions of individuals; equally and especially on persons in detention facilities. Persons deprived of liberty with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities are in a particularly vulnerable situation since they are overrepresented in prisons and ‘disproportionately impacted due to attitudinal, environmental and institutional barriers that are reproduced in the Covid-19 response’ as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged.
With this project, the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM) in cooperation with partners from Austria, Italy and Germany aims to assess the challenges faced during the Covid-19 pandemic by persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, who are detained as a result of their criminal behaviour and/or as a result of exemption of criminal responsibility due to their disability. More specifically, the project will identify paths for future research on the challenges of pandemics in closed institutions, develop recommendations on how the situation of persons deprived of liberty with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities in times of a pandemic can be improved, while simultaneously raising awareness on the topic.
To achieve these goals, the project will apply open innovation in science methods . This will enable an early and structured involvement of persons deprived of liberty with psychosocial disabilities, their relatives and experts closely working with them (e.g. lawyers, representatives of extramural care facilities and so on), who will be actively participating in the conceptualisation of the project, the identification of challenges as well as of pathways for future research at various stages of the project. Moreover, the project is carried out by organisations with longstanding experience, some representing the interests of persons who are deprived of their liberty and their relatives. With their active involvement through co-developing and co-designing the project the effective engagement and empowerment of persons with lived experience will be strengthened.
