When Distress Is Mistaken for Defiance, Harm Becomes Predictable

One of the most dangerous errors an institution can make is to mistake a person's visible behaviour for their intention.

Someone is frightened, overwhelmed, confused or unable to process what is being demanded of them. An authority figure reads the response as defiance. Instructions become sharper. The person becomes more distressed. Their distress is then recorded as proof that the original assessment was correct.

The system creates the escalation, then treats the escalation as evidence against the person.

This pattern can occur in policing, courts, healthcare, disability support, housing and public administration. Its consequences become most serious where the institution has the power to detain, restrain, remove support, jeopardise housing or take away someone's liberty.

When distress is mistaken for defiance, harm becomes predictable.

What Brutal Force exposed

On 1 June 2026, ABC Four Corners broadcast [Brutal Force], documenting alleged and proven misconduct by NSW Police.

The footage involving [Jodi Knott] was confronting. Jodi, who lived with schizophrenia, was experiencing psychosis when officers were called to a western Sydney street. The encounter escalated into an assault involving kicks, stomping, dragging and pepper spray. Two officers later pleaded guilty to common assault. Recording existed; its existence did not protect her.

What happened to Jodi cannot be reduced to a misunderstanding. It involved serious misconduct for which officers were criminally convicted. But the case also raises a wider question about the design of the response: why are people in acute mental distress so often placed into encounters structured around police authority and immediate behavioural compliance?

The question applies beyond any individual officer's motive or intent.

When police interpret fear as resistance, delayed processing as obstruction, shutdown as suspicious behaviour, and panic as aggression, the person's actual circumstances can disappear from the decision being made about them.

Once that happens, an interaction that began as a welfare concern can become an exercise in control.

Vulnerability does not always look vulnerable

There is a socially comfortable image of vulnerability: quiet, passive, cooperative, grateful and visibly helpless.

Real people rarely conform to it.

An autistic person may avoid eye contact, speak bluntly, repeat a question or need additional time to interpret instructions. Someone with ADHD may speak rapidly, interrupt or become emotionally intense under pressure. A person with a trauma history may freeze, flee, fawn or react defensively to uniforms, confinement, sudden contact or a raised voice. Someone experiencing psychosis may be frightened by events that others do not perceive.

These are possibilities, not diagnostic shortcuts. No single gesture or tone tells an officer what condition a person has, whether they are truthful or whether they present a genuine danger.

The danger lies in using the behaviour itself as a substitute for investigation.

A person can swear without threatening violence. They can be loud without intending harm. They can demand accountability without threatening someone personally. They can be cognitively unable to comply with a rapid sequence of instructions even while wanting the interaction to end safely.

A person can also pose a genuine risk while distressed or disabled. Officers must be able to protect themselves and others. That assessment should rest on observable conduct, context, credible threats, immediate circumstances and proportionate options — not merely on how calmly someone speaks.

A reason is not an excuse. A reason is context.

Accountability becomes more accurate when the context is examined rather than erased.

The escalation loop

The failure pathway is straightforward.

First, an authority figure encounters unfamiliar or distressed behaviour.

Second, the behaviour is interpreted primarily as non-compliance or threat.

Third, the institution intensifies demands, force, questioning or control.

Fourth, the person becomes more overwhelmed, fearful or defensive.

Finally, that reaction is used to justify the original interpretation. The record concentrates on the person's final behaviour, while the actions that preceded it become background or disappear altogether.

This is a feedback loop. It can turn an avoidable communication failure into an arrest, an exclusion, a restraint, a damaging behavioural label or a prolonged legal dispute.

It is particularly dangerous for people whose disability affects communication, executive function, emotional regulation or the ability to explain themselves coherently under pressure.

The institution usually owns the incident report. The person may have only their distressed words, fragmented memories or a difficult complaint process. That asymmetry can determine which account becomes official.

Police have already recognised part of the problem

This is no longer just a criticism from outside the police force.

The NSW Police Force's [own review of responses to community mental-health incidents] acknowledged that most of the incidents considered did not involve a criminal offence or a threat of violence, and that police presence can itself be experienced as an escalating factor. It identified the need to examine alternatives to routine police-led responses.

The consequences of poor crisis design appear in other cases, though their circumstances and legal outcomes differ.

In 2023, 95-year-old Clare Nowland, who had dementia and used a walker, died after a police officer deployed a Taser while she held a knife at an aged-care facility. Former officer Kristian White was convicted of manslaughter; his non-custodial sentence was upheld on appeal in July 2025. The presence of a knife was a real safety consideration. It did not eliminate the requirement to assess necessity, proportionality and alternatives. [ABC reporting]

In July 2026, an inquest began into the 2023 police shooting of Jesse Deacon after a call reporting self-harm. Evidence described gaps in the information available to responding officers and in their planning. The inquiry process, rather than assumptions made from its opening evidence, must determine what findings follow. [Guardian reporting]

Psychosis is not autism. Dementia is not ADHD. Self-harm is not criminality. Nor does every use-of-force incident establish the same type of wrong.

The recurring design question is what responders knew, what hazards were foreseeable, and whether the available response increased or reduced the danger.

The law must examine what happened before the reaction

Australian disability law already recognises an important principle: disability can manifest through behaviour.

Section 4 of the [Disability Discrimination Act 1992] expressly includes behaviour that is a symptom or manifestation of an otherwise covered disability. Its discrimination provisions also address reasonable adjustments in relevant circumstances.

That does not mean disability excuses threats or violence. Nor does the Act automatically make every difficult police interaction unlawful. The applicable obligations depend on the relevant law, powers, setting and facts.

It does mean that dismissing the disability context simply because a person behaved inconveniently is an inadequate way to approach questions of access, fairness and discrimination.

A related development deserves careful attention. In [Cullen v New South Wales [2026] HCA 19], decided on 17 June 2026, the High Court held that police undertaking crowd-control operations owed a duty to take reasonable care to avoid physical injury to people foreseeably at risk from their positive operational conduct. The appeal was allowed and remaining issues were sent back for determination.

Cullen was a protest and bystander case. It was not a disability case, and it does not itself decide the legal duties in every mental-health callout. But it illustrates an important legal distinction: the exercise of police powers and the assessment of foreseeable harm are not beyond judicial scrutiny. Whether a duty was breached in a particular case requires its own analysis.

For disability-informed institutional practice, the essential questions are concrete:

What was known about the person's vulnerability? What should reasonably have been recognised? What did the person actually say or do? What adjustment was requested or practicable? What alternatives existed? What did the institution do before the escalation? Was the resulting intervention necessary and proportionate?

Those questions should be answered before a file is reduced to the words aggressive, obstructive, non-compliant or unreasonable.

Tone is not intent

A person saying they intend to complain, seek legal advice, demand a review or hold an official accountable is not necessarily threatening personal harm.

Tone, context, content and conduct must be distinguished. Direct or repetitive language can be unpleasant, ill-judged or difficult to manage without proving violent intent. Equally, an explicit threat cannot be dismissed simply because the speaker has a disability.

The task of a capable institution is to examine the whole communication and its circumstances.

This is a question of institutional power as much as interpersonal skill. Police can use force. Courts can impose orders. Agencies can restrict access. Housing providers can affect someone's security. A vulnerable person may have only their ability to communicate.

When that communication is imperfect, an institution should not use the imperfection to avoid examining the complaint or concern being expressed.

There must be a way to protect staff and the public while still investigating whether the institution contributed to the conflict. These responsibilities can coexist.

Prevention first: disability-informed response must become an operational rule

Recording a harmful encounter may allow us to investigate it later. The person still experiences the harm. The primary safety intervention must therefore happen before escalation, through better dispatch decisions, communication, de-escalation, timely clinical assistance and clear limits on unnecessary force.

Training matters, but a training package that leaves practice to an officer's discretion is an incomplete safeguard.

NableU advocates a co-designed neurodivergent and psychosocial-disability interaction protocol, embedded in dispatch, frontline decisions, supervision, complaints and performance review.

It should require responders to recognise potential communication and cognitive barriers early; give clear, direct instructions and reasonable processing time; lower avoidable sensory pressure; explain actions before physical contact when safe; offer written communication and appropriate support-person pathways; and reassess whether force or continued questioning is necessary when the person's distress is visibly increasing.

The [NSW Justice Advocacy Service] | (https://dcj.nsw.gov.au/legal-and-justice/legal-assistance-and-representation/justice-advocacy-service.html) already provides relevant support for people with cognitive impairment interacting with the criminal justice system. That pathway should be actively considered where appropriate, without pretending it is available or legally mandated in every situation.

For crises without an immediate law-enforcement necessity, the preferred response should be health-led. In July 2026 the NSW Government announced a $270 million shift towards clinician-led mental-health emergency care, including a statewide virtual mental-health hub and eight acute assessment teams. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists welcomed the direction while calling for broader around-the-clock access and stronger community care. [RANZCP, 30 July 2026] | (https://www.ranzcp.org/news-analysis/psychiatrists-welcome-long-awaited-shift-towards-health-led-mental-health-crisis-care).

An announcement is not evidence that every person can access those services today. Coverage, response time, regional availability, after-hours capacity, clinical outcomes and the experiences of people who use the system must be measured.

This is where training, healthcare resourcing, dispatch rules, police tactics, disability access and independent oversight meet. They cannot succeed as isolated reforms.

Body-worn cameras document encounters; they cannot prevent the first harm

When the first of these essays was written in June, the demand was for mandatory body-worn camera activation. That policy changed on 5 August 2026.

Following Brutal Force and recommendations from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, NSW Police introduced a policy generally requiring operational officers to wear and activate cameras when exercising police powers or using force, subject to exemptions and circumstances where use is reasonably impracticable. Officers are required to record reasons when cameras are not worn or used, or are switched off during an incident. [LECC announcement] | (https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/news/nsw-police-require-officers-to-use-body-worn-cameras-following-police-watchdog-report).

The distinction here is essential. A body-worn camera cannot physically stop an officer from striking, restraining or escalating against a person. If an encounter goes wrong, the person is still harmed. The footage may subsequently help reconstruct events, challenge a false or incomplete account, investigate misconduct and secure accountability. None of those benefits should be confused with preventing the encounter from becoming harmful in the first place.

There may also be an indirect preventive benefit. Knowing an interaction is recorded, might be reviewed and could lead to consequences may influence conduct. Routine, independent auditing can expose recurring patterns that inform supervision and training. But we should not assume the existence of a camera creates deterrence. An officer must expect the camera to be operating, the recording to be retained, the conduct to be scrutinised and necessary corrective action to follow.

The evidence demands caution. A [2020 Campbell systematic review of 30 studies] | (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8356344/) found no clear or consistent reduction in officers' use of force attributable to body-worn cameras. Complaints against officers generally decreased, but researchers could not determine whether that meant encounters improved or complaints were reported differently. Some findings suggested restricting officer discretion over activation might reduce force, but further evaluation was needed. International studies cannot be assumed to predict outcomes under the new NSW policy.

Jodi Knott's case is a direct warning: recording can coexist with serious misconduct. Footage must be secured, disclosed through lawful processes, independently reviewed when warranted and assessed alongside other evidence rather than selectively narrated.

NSW should therefore make recording safeguards enforceable: independent scrutiny of unexplained gaps, prompt preservation when force or vulnerability is involved, protection against tampering or improper deletion, accessible evidence-request mechanisms, privacy protections and meaningful consequences for unjustified breaches. Any surveillance benefit must be weighed against the dignity of people recorded during intimate or highly vulnerable moments.

Preventive reform asks whether the harm occurred less often. Evidence reform asks whether we can establish what happened. Accountability reform asks what the institution did about it. We need all three, but cameras cannot substitute for the first.

Accountability should measure the harm prevented

Procedural systems tend to count the steps they completed: officers dispatched, incidents finalised, training undertaken, cameras issued and reports lodged.

Those metrics show activity. They do not establish that the person was safer. Nor does a fall in recorded complaints necessarily prove that force or harm declined. Measures must distinguish recording compliance from force and injury rates, escalation involving known vulnerabilities, the availability and uptake of clinical alternatives, the quality of independent review, and whether people can raise concerns without additional procedural harm.

A better evaluation would ask whether people in distress received the right kind of help; how often interactions escalated to force; how frequently disability or communication needs were recognised; whether requests for adjustments were honoured; whether independent complaints could be made and resolved; and whether affected people and families trusted the process enough to seek help again.

It would also account for officers' safety and wellbeing, the availability of clinicians, and the circumstances of genuine violence or immediate danger. The aim is effective risk management, not a simplistic demand for zero enforcement in every situation.

Critically, review must record institutional conduct preceding escalation, not merely the vulnerable person's final reaction.

This is consistent with NableU's wider position: the success of a human service should be measured by what it makes possible for people, not simply by whether its procedures were completed.

Reform must survive the news cycle

I wrote the original law-enforcement training proposal because this failure pathway was already visible. The Four Corners investigation did not create it. It exposed it to a wider public.

Since June, the body-camera policy has changed, the High Court has clarified an important duty-of-care question in Cullen, and NSW has announced movement towards health-led crisis responses. These are developments worth acknowledging.

They do not settle the central problem.

A person should not have to present their disability calmly and conveniently to receive disability-informed treatment. Nor should an officer have to rely on personal intuition alone to decide how a highly distressed person can best be approached.

Real reform means designing for the encounter before it goes wrong: better triage, trained and supported responders, reasonable adjustments, clinical alternatives, evidence preservation, accessible review and consequences when safeguards are ignored.

This is pro-safety. It is pro-evidence. It is pro-accountability — for officers, institutions and the people affected by their actions.

The law must be capable of seeing the cause and context of behaviour, rather than treating the final moment of distress as the whole story.

A system that repeatedly mistakes distress for danger cannot claim to be managing risk intelligently.

And a system that records the escalation without examining its own role in producing it has yet to understand what accountability means.

Sources and further reading

NableU Community Systems Incorporated advocates for dignity, agency, autonomy, cognitive equity and cognitive sovereignty. About NableU · Back to the article title