Slavny-Cross, Rachel;
Allison, Carrie;
Griffiths, Sarah;
Baron-Cohen, Simon;
(2022)
Are autistic people disadvantaged by the criminal justice system? A case comparison.
Autism
10.1177/13623613221140284.
(In press).
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Abstract
Most autistic people will never experience being arrested or charged with a crime, however for those who do tend to be less satisfied with the way they were treated. The purpose of this study was to find out if autistic people are being disadvantaged by the criminal justice system if they are arrested. Previous research has shown that autistic people may have difficulties communicating with the police. This study builds on this knowledge by uncovering why autistic people may not feel able to communicate with the police and whether the police made any adjustments to help them. This study also measures the impact of being involved with the criminal justice system on autistic people's mental health, such as stress, meltdowns and shutdowns. The results show that autistic people were not always given the support they felt they needed. For example, not all autistic people had an appropriate adult with them at the police station who could help to make sure they understood what was happening around them. Autistic people were also more likely to feel less able to cope with the stress and more likely to suffer meltdowns and shutdowns because of their involvement with the criminal justice system. We hope this study will help police officers and lawyers to better support autistic people if they become involved with the criminal justice system.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Are autistic people disadvantaged by the criminal justice system? A case comparison |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/13623613221140284 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221140284 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Autism, criminal justice, meltdown, reasonable adjustments, shutdown |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10163190 |
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