Prosecuted for being Autistic

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone feel they have been prosecuted for being on the Autistic spectrum or felt that this has prejudiced the case against them ?

I don't know but I would guess that this is more likely with Asperger like symptoms as these are not so obvious.

I am in the UK so can relate more to the law there but would like to hear from anywhere else people think they have experienced this.

Obviously make sure you don't include identifying details.

My feelings are, maybe someone will correct me, that Asperger's in particular is not treated sympathetically but is actually treated as a 'lame excuse'.

Did you mean persecuted instead of prosecuted? I don't think it is against the law anywhere to be autistic. We can often find ourselves being persecuted indirectly due to our differences and the lack of understanding and compassion of society in general. We don't easily fit into societal structures.

I wouldn't say prosecuted, but definitely most of my life in school I was a target of lots of things, mean pranks that took advantage of my trusting nature, being regarded as a plaything for mean kids in middle school. And then, actually I don't know for sure, sorry for wasting a post like this.

Yeah, if NTs are supposed to have this empathy, I wish they would have empathy towards people on the spectrum (in other words, be able to put themselves into our shoes, just like we're expected to do to them).

OK, I'm not an ''us vs them'' person, I just mean in general. Like when I go out in the street, I get odd looks from older people, hostility from younger people, and humiliated by obnoxious teenagers. I get fed up with being singled out all the time because I know I'm not that distinguishable; I keep up with the fashion and wear stylish clothes, I always look presentable, and I have learnt myself to keep up an approachable gait. I've even been told by a very trusting aunt of mine, that I look a lot more confident than I used to, which I believed I did anyway. So if there is a teeny, minuscule difference, I thought it would become rather unnoticed among crowds. And there are people about who look and act ''weirder'' than me so I don't see what the issue with me is.

But anyway, yeah, I do feel kind of punished for being on the Autistic spectrum. Especially when I was on unemployment benefit for almost 5 years on the trot. I think what made finding jobs the most difficult was the dilemma of whether I should tell the employers about my disability or not. I felt there was a catch between both options.

I felt this way as a kid. Kids could easily get me into trouble, get me to do things by egging me, I could be easily pressured, kids took advantage of me, I was treated different, even by school staff, I felt I was not allowed to be normal and be like everyone else. I felt I had different rules from everyone and rules didn't apply to them but did for me. I was also bullied. I was very frustrated and at home I would feel normal where I was treated as such. I also felt in my teens I was being punished for having anxiety because my parents would get mad at me about it. I often don't feel that way as an adult. I still feel vulnerable but lot of people don't know me and I don't want them to know me. I feel once they do, they will know they can take advantage of me if they know my weak spots and try and mess with me. I also try and not be too open about myself.

I have dealt with the police only once. I was looking in second hand shops and someone thought I took a movie so he called the police. They came and found me and arrested me for "shoplifting" and they handcuffed me and took me to the station. It was very humiliating because it happened in a small town and I knew if someone who knew me saw the whole thing, they would gossip about it and then those people will tell other people about it. They did call my parents and they came and got me an brought me home. There was no bail or other charges and I wasn't locked int he cell. But I did start to doubt myself thinking what if I really did take a video tape and didn't remember. That's how vulnerable I was and my parents were furious about all this and they had to pay to get the vehicle out of the yard they had impounded. My dad ordered them to search the car so they did and everything was dropped. Good thing I didn't buy a movie somewhere else or they would have thought it was the tape I took.

I don't know what I did that made the store owner think I took something. I don't know if it was autism related or not. He also wouldn't show my mother the video and it was to limit liability so he refused to show her it.

The whole ting was scary because I didn't know what was going to happen and how it was going to effect me in school and I thought I may have to switch schools or drop out if the word followed me to another town. I stayed hidden at home all weekend long and Mom had to make me go to school on Monday. Yes I was teased about it for about two weeks, but I was also given support too about it so things turned out good. Then everyone moved on.

More cases ...


"Trauma of autistic boy shackled by police
Father describes suffering of son who was dragged from pool by officers and restrained"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/1 ... tistic-boy

"Autistic girl spent ten hours in a cell – because police wrongly thought she was drunk"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... drunk.html

Plymouth police stripped autistic girl and restrained her in body suit
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Plymout ... story.html

Well yes. If you cannot self advocate well, or even make things worse.

When I was a child, yes, I was the target of ridicule.

I was once fined in an instance where anybody else would receive a verbal warning at worst.

I recently read an article about detecting lies, apparently these common misconceptions are even listed in the police manual:
1. Ignore the verbal communication (because everyone lies) and only pay attention to the nonverbal communication.
2. Perceived mismatch between verbal communication and nonverbal communication = lying/guilty.
3. Looking away and appearing nervous or moving a lot = lying/guilty.

It reads more like an autistic catching manual than a criminal catching manual.

Apparently most people believe in this (and are aware other people believe this) so then try to look less nervous, use more eye contact and fidget/stim/move around less when both lying and telling the truth when questioned, and the reason liars are successful in that is that there is not much truth behind the stereotypes.
The article then goes on to list the actual truths about liars, the fallacies people often believe, and that because the police (etc) go by the wrong information they are not always good lie detectors. It even showed that if they taught the police a new better way of catching lies, they didn't improve while the non-police group did. They speculate that it was because the police got confused (maybe because it didn't match their manual) or because they didn't want to listen to an "outsider" about how to detect lies.
The article mentions cultural differences that are perceived by (mostly cacuasian) people as suspicious.

This is All About Psychology's introduction:
"See following link to read a comprehensive full-text, open-access journal article by Aldert Vrij, Par Anders Granhag & Stephen Porter which discusses some of the common misconceptions about lying (for example, the belief that people telling lies are more nervous), reviews the shortcomings of commonly used lie-detection techniques, and presents new empirically supported methods for recognizing lies with greater accuracy."
www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/p ... i_10_6.pdf