Through theoretical and empirical examination of legal frameworks for court diversion, this book interrogates law's complicity in the debilitation of disabled people. In a post-deinstitutionalisation era, diverting disabled people from criminal justice systems and into mental health and disability services is considered therapeutic, humane and socially just. Yet, by drawing on Foucauldian theory of biopolitics, critical legal and political theory and critical disability theory, Steele argues that court diversion continues disability oppression. It can facilitate criminalisation, control and punishment of disabled people who are not sentenced and might not even be convicted of any criminal offences. On a broader level, court diversion contributes to the longstanding phenomenon of disability-specific coercive intervention, legitimates prison incarceration and shores up the boundaries of foundational legal concepts at the core of jurisdiction, legal personhood and sovereignty. Steele shows that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities cannot respond to the complexities of court diversion, suggesting the CRPD is of limited use in contesting carceral control and legal and settler colonial violence. The book not only offers new ways to understand relationships between disability, criminal justice and law; it also proposes theoretical and practical strategies that contribute to the development of a wider re-imagining of a more progressive and just socio-legal order. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability law, criminal law, medical law, socio-legal studies, disability studies, social work and criminology. It will also be of interest to disability, prisoner and social justice activists.

Hotly contested, normality remains a powerful, complex category in contemporary law and culture. What is little realized are the ways in which disability underpins and shapes the operation of norms and the power dynamics of normalization. This pioneering collection explores the place of law in political, social, scientific and biomedical developments relating to disability and other categories of 'abnormality'. The contributors show how law produces cultural meanings, norms, representations, artefacts and expressions of disability, abnormality and normality, as well as how law responds to and is constituted by cultures of disability. The collection traverses a range of contemporary legal and political issues including human rights, mercy killing, reproductive technologies, hate crime, policing, immigration and disability housing. It also explores the impact and ongoing legacies of historical practices such as eugenics and deinstitutionalization. Of interest to a wide range of scholars working on normality and law, the book also creates an opening for critical scholars and activists engaged with other marginalized and denigrated categories, notably contesting institutional violence in the context of settler colonialism, neoliberalism and imperialism, to engage more richly and politically with disability. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Continuum journal.

Hotly contested, normality remains a powerful, complex category in contemporary law and culture. What is little realized are the ways in which disability underpins and shapes the operation of norms and the power dynamics of normalization. This pioneering collection explores the place of law in political, social, scientific and biomedical developments relating to disability and other categories of 'abnormality'. The contributors show how law produces cultural meanings, norms, representations, artefacts and expressions of disability, abnormality and normality, as well as how law responds to and is constituted by cultures of disability. The collection traverses a range of contemporary legal and political issues including human rights, mercy killing, reproductive technologies, hate crime, policing, immigration and disability housing. It also explores the impact and ongoing legacies of historical practices such as eugenics and deinstitutionalization. Of interest to a wide range of scholars working on normality and law, the book also creates an opening for critical scholars and activists engaged with other marginalized and denigrated categories, notably contesting institutional violence in the context of settler colonialism, neoliberalism and imperialism, to engage more richly and politically with disability. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Continuum journal.

This is the first collection to examine the legal dynamics of deinstitutionalisation. It considers the extent to which some contemporary laws, policies and practices affecting people with disabilities are moving towards the promised end point of enhanced social and political participation in the community, while others may instead reinstate, continue or legitimate historical practices associated with this population's institutionalisation. Bringing together 20 contributors from the UK, Canada, Australia, Spain and Indonesia, the book speaks to overarching themes of segregation and inequality, interlocking forms of oppression and rights-based advancements in law, policy and practice. Ultimately this collection brings forth the possibilities, limits and contradictions in the roles of law and policy in processes of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation, and directs us towards a more nuanced and sustained scholarly and political engagement with these issues.

Through theoretical and empirical examination of legal frameworks for court diversion, this book interrogates law's complicity in the debilitation of disabled people. In a post-deinstitutionalisation era, diverting disabled people from criminal justice systems and into mental health and disability services is considered therapeutic, humane and socially just. Yet, by drawing on Foucauldian theory of biopolitics, critical legal and political theory and critical disability theory, Steele argues that court diversion continues disability oppression. It can facilitate criminalisation, control and punishment of disabled people who are not sentenced and might not even be convicted of any criminal offences. On a broader level, court diversion contributes to the longstanding phenomenon of disability-specific coercive intervention, legitimates prison incarceration and shores up the boundaries of foundational legal concepts at the core of jurisdiction, legal personhood and sovereignty. Steele shows that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities cannot respond to the complexities of court diversion, suggesting the CRPD is of limited use in contesting carceral control and legal and settler colonial violence. The book not only offers new ways to understand relationships between disability, criminal justice and law; it also proposes theoretical and practical strategies that contribute to the development of a wider re-imagining of a more progressive and just socio-legal order. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability law, criminal law, medical law, socio-legal studies, disability studies, social work and criminology. It will also be of interest to disability, prisoner and social justice activists.

Random Acts begins with the invasion of Luxembourg the summer of 1914, during the first required visit Susanna Strashoffer Von Heldorf made from the United States to visit her elderly grandfather in Luxembourg. When the Germans moved into the country in August, she and her grandfather lost themselves in the chaos and headed for a remote cabin in the mountains of Northern Italy. Though she missed her adoptive parents and their sons, she and her grandfather and her small dog, Minnie, got along well and were self-sufficient. Susanna, a gifted musician, dreamed of her music and composed many works without the aide of her beloved piano. Her grandfather, hunted for food every day and then in March of that first year, he died of a heart attack, leaving Susanna alone in a strange place to fend for herself.
This is the first-hand account of her experiences as she fought for survival during the four-and-a-half years the war lasted. She describes the freezing winter she spent with her grandfather in a cabin high in the Alps and about burying him in a cave after his death in the early spring of 1915. She also tells us about the time she was "rescued" by Italian soldiers and of the next winter nearly starving to death while living alone in a cave at the foothills of the mountains. She recounts the nightmare of being tried for treason after helping an injured enemy soldier and of subsequently being beaten nearly to death by the Italian authorities.
Along with the bad, she remembers the good times when she entertained the Italian troops with her music and was thought to be an angel by many soldiers because she mended their bodies in the field hospitals with such expertise, yet appeared to be a child. The city of Verona buzzed with stories of her supernatural powers after she performed a cesarean section on a dead woman and saved the baby's life. The widows and mothers left behind when their husbands went off to war loved her for keeping them fed and for teaching them how to survive when there was little food to keep their families from starving.
Towards the end of the war, Susanna decided that she could never return to the home of her adoptive parents, the wealthy VonHelldorf's of Bayland, Ohio. Too much had happened and she wasn't the same spoiled little rich girl who had gone to Luxembourg four years before. She believed that until the day one of the Von Helldorf sons arrived in the field hospital where she was staying, his leg amputated. That day her decision was challenged. She began to renew old ties and eventually went to live with her adopted mother's family in France and then after the war, finally returned to the United States as the very young bride of Joseph Von Helldorf, one of the other sons. Her adoptive father, Rolph, was unhappy to learn that she had married his oldest son out of the Church's sanctions and protested loudly when he heard the news, but after an unhappy confrontation, love and understanding won out and there was a compromise.

This is the first collection to examine the legal dynamics of deinstitutionalisation. It considers the extent to which some contemporary laws, policies and practices affecting people with disabilities are moving towards the promised end point of enhanced social and political participation in the community, while others may instead reinstate, continue or legitimate historical practices associated with this population's institutionalisation. Bringing together 20 contributors from the UK, Canada, Australia, Spain and Indonesia, the book speaks to overarching themes of segregation and inequality, interlocking forms of oppression and rights-based advancements in law, policy and practice. Ultimately this collection brings forth the possibilities, limits and contradictions in the roles of law and policy in processes of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation, and directs us towards a more nuanced and sustained scholarly and political engagement with these issues.

In the summer of 1940 when war clouds were gathering, Susanna and Joseph Von Helldorf were recruited by the United States Army to train combat surgeons in preparation for war. Though they were never meant to go anywhere near enemy lines, through a series of clerical errors, they spend nearly the entire war in combat zones. Surrounded by tragedy, Susanna and Joseph strive to save the young soldiers and guide the youthful medical staff toward excellence. As they move through the war, they touch many lives at their most critical moments. If they survive, what will happen when the war is over? Maybe nothing will ever be the same again. The characters that were so loved in Random Acts are in the thick of the action once again in a sweeping drama with a host of new players who bring rich detail to this incredible historical event. Readers will be rewarded by stories that will fill their hearts.