VALID presents “[They will use] My First Name”, a virtual reality documentary exploring the experiences of people with intellectual disability in Australia’s criminal justice systems.
With the police. In court. In prison. People with intellectual disability, especially First Nations people, are overrepresented across all areas of Australia’s criminal justice systems, often resulting from trauma and lifelong disadvantage.
A 2013 Victorian parliamentary inquiry reported that people with intellectual disability were “anywhere between 40 and 300 percent more likely to be jailed than people without intellectual disability”. Yet this is a problem that successive governments have so far been unable to solve.
[They Will Use] My First Name has been released by VALID to accompany a year long participatory research project “Justice For All”. The project was established in response to the increasing need for support and advocacy VALID witnessed for people with intellectual disability involved in the criminal justice system and you can download the Justice For All report here You can find out more about the film and project here.