Do the Police See Individuals with Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities as Dangerous?

In police culture, the danger imperative is the idea that the most important part of policing is to “come home at the end of the night.” Neurodivergence brings uncertainty to police encounters; because of the danger imperative, police officers may respond to that uncertainly with increased use of force. We examine the likelihood of being handcuffed and detained (low levels of use of force) for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DDs) (i.e., neurodiverse diagnoses) during discretionary stops using data from police stops in California (n = 3,300,671) and doubly-robust inverse-propensity weighted regression. Results show that the average effect of being I/DD on the likelihood of being handcuffed is nearly 6.5% percentage points higher than people without I/DD; similarly, the average effect of being I/DD on the likelihood of being detained is also nearly 7.5% percentage points higher than people without I/DD. Our findings point to officers’ perceptions of danger and safety (i.e., the danger imperative) during encounters with individuals with I/DD, creating disparate experiences with low levels of use for force for this population.