4 CONCLUSIONS The main legal and practical gaps identified in this research are: • The stigma and the low priority given to criminal cases in which disabled persons are involved because of it; • The biggest problems related to persons with IPD who have committed crimes is the social isolation, the poverty and the lack of support network to ensure regular outpatient treatment, resocialisation and recovery from crisis and hospital treatment; • The lack of identification mechanism for the IPD, the extreme scarcity of forensic experts, hospitals and centres for placement for assessment and treatment, the delayed assessment of the disability, the lack of access to outpatient treatment especially for those who are not health insured; • The lack of support services for defendants and detainees with IPD; • The lack of sufficient capacity in the hospitals and the mental health centres for inpatient treatment; • The sometimes inadequate, unclear, unreasoned assessments during the pre-trial proceedings; • The lack of access to a fair trial for defendants declared as criminally irresponsible later in the proceedings. They are not accused at all and are not informed about their procedural rights including about their right to mandatory legal assistance; • The long stay of persons under compulsory treatment in the psychiatric hospitals due to lack of community support services outside the hospitals; the release from compulsory treatment of persons who are Bulgarian Helsinki Committee 63