My only Aspie friend has just been sent to prison.

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Sorry about your friend. My cousin speeds a lot. He doesn't have aspergers, but he doesn't realise that he could hurt people. Either that or he doesn't care.

If I were you I'd visit him. If he's in minimum security he'll be right, consider him lucky not to have been in Maitland or Long Bay.

Laws were invented to control people. We've been told that crimes are violations of laws. In this respect, the only crime committed is speeding. The crash occurred ONLY AFTER he lost control of the car, therefore anything that happened from the instant the loss of control occurred must not be attributed to any person, as whatever the car did at that point was not governed or controlled by anyone. If I were to believe in retribution, I'd charge him with committing reckless driving and not the unintended consequences of the reckless driving. How can unintended consequences of actions, which are not actions themselves and which are committed by no person, be a violation of law?



That's not the same thing. If you fire a gun directly at someone, it WILL hit them and maybe kill them. It cannot be said that you relinquish control of the bullet when you fire, as the moment you fire a gun, it is a physical and mathematical certainty that the bullet will come shooting out of the barrel, at a very high, and lethal, speed, in the direction it is pointing. Driving a car fast with passengers does not certify anything at all, except that the car is being driven fast with passengers in it. If control was maintained at all times, absolutely no harm would have befallen a single human being, as there was no intent to harm or kill.

[quote="Squidward

It's simply a crying shame that we don't fit. We don't ask to be Autistic. Homosexuals don't ask to be homosexual. Paedophiles don't ask to be paedophiles. Serial killers don't ask for their murderous urges. It's a shame that people are stigmatized, victimized and persecuted for something they had absolutely no control over. Why should people who can't help but to be or feel a certain way be met with punishment from the justice system by the same standards as all those who don't possess a psychological abnormality?

[/quote]

It's a shame that paedophiles are stigmatized for sexual assault on children? It's a shame that serial killers are stigmatized for for murdering innocent people? I am not sure I follow your logic.

Sexual assault on children and murdering innocent people are stigmatized. It's cruel to the people that are born with those urges, as they can't help them. Although their desires are irredeemably stigmatized, the people themselves should not be.

How do you know they can't help it? We all fight all kind of urges and temptations. Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean - people should just be allowed to go around killing others and raping children? Do you realise the implications and consequences?

I'm sorry for your friend, but I wonder if you would feel the same if he was the one to lose his life to a kid's reckless driving? Just a thought.

I was disturbed by what the OP said and sinsboldly sure hit the nail in the head and couple others called out on it.

Should serial killers not be punished when they kill? Should pedophiles not be punished if they rape a child or touch them wrong?

I am sure his victim's mother would like to have the warm embrace of her child too. Sorry but he did kill someone. A deaf guy on my street was jumped by two guys he cut one guy and he bled to death the deaf guy got a manslaughter charge then went to jail. Thats why I stopped carrying a knife where ever I go and now carry mace the courts do not care if you are disabled. I do not drive, I know I am clumsy and do not pay attention I have great potential to run someone over because of it. He took the responsibility to drive now he has to take responsibility for his actions.

What, are you serious? The judge did not kill his victim his reckless driving killed his victim. He has caused unkown amounts of suffering to his victim's and his families. I hope for the good of Australia this guy never drives again and does his full amount of prison time.

I’m saying that certain people who commit acts of violence or cruelty are unable to control their urges. I’m am definitely not saying nothing should be done about it, as they are a threat to society, even more so than those who are provoked a single time into killing or raping.

Assuming they can’t control their urges, paedophiles and serial killers should be regarded in the same way as those who are mentally ill. To me it seems that although Aspies are considered mentally ill, even though we don’t do anything, someone who is even more mentally ill, to the point where THEY WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH CHILDREN, the law conveniently labels as criminal, and not ill. If you remove the criminal aspect from it, then there is no “just” cause for prosecution and punishment (which are both knee-jerk reactions).

Everyone is offended by paedophiles and serial killers (as am I); this is why. Aspies don’t offend people; it’s not symptomatic of Asperger’s Syndrome to have uncontrollable sadistic urges. It is however part and parcel with being a paedophile that a person DOES have urges, but they had equally little say in being born with those urges as we all had being born Autistic. The actions that should be undertaken to prevent these people’s urges from harming society should not be AGAINST them. They are victims of circumstance and deserve to be helped like everyone else. Education is the key.



I want to visit him at some point. I hope he'll be all right with it. He's being sent temporarily to Yatala Labour Prison, then once the paperwork is done, he'll be transferred to Mobilong Prison in Murray Bridge. I don't know anything about Maitland or Long Bay. All I know is that everyone was whispering to each other outside the courtroom that he was lucky not to be sent to Port Augusta.



I would. I only became friends with him after the accident. I started talking to him partly as a result of it. If someone else was driving, I’d be in the same position, but with a different person suffering the consequences of the existence of law, but probably not an Aspie themselves.



No, he didn’t. I’ve explained why this is so a few posts above this one.



The courts don’t care if you’re disabled if you’ve stabbed someone. They do care if you’re disabled if you’re a victim of a stabbing, though, of course.



The judge did not kill the passenger. The judge sentenced the driver to a term in prison. This is the direct human action that has led to imprisonment. The judge is to blame for the imprisonment, not the driver, as he is in prison involuntarily.



I will not condone violence or cruelty in any fashion, legislated or not. Some countries, such as Jamaica, still have the death penalty for homosexuality. Why should I trust that the justice system in Australia is absolutely perfect and faultless when the same system in other countries is obviously not so?

I’m sorry the human race is bloodthirsty.

I think that the person who issued him a drivers license should be the one thrown into jail.

Even NT people kills people in this way - just they are so f-ing desperate to be a social animal.

One of my autistic friends said why not put pedophiles and serial killers in a mental hospital than in prison. That's what we do with the mentally ill but people with mental illnesses do go to prison if they were found guilty of their actions and held accountable.

If a schizophrenic stopped taking their medicine and they ended up raping someone believing someone else did it, not them. The jury can decide he is held responsible because he chose to stop taking his medication and if he would have still kept taking it, the crime wouldn't have happened.

If this is even true, I really don't see how it's not his fault. The death(s) were a direct result of his driving. If he did not drive recklessly, he would not have lost control of the car, and would not have been in place to kill anyone. The fact that control of the car was lost doesn't matter when the fact that the driver caused it to happen is brought into consideration.

Yes, AS sucks and sometimes we do stupid stupid things to try to fit in. That doesn't take away that he broke a law, and deaths resulted from that. He broke a law that includes prison time as a possible punishment. Most places that regulate driving make sure you know what you can, and cannot do before giving you the legal right to drive. So, he likely knew better. If he didn't, then he shouldn't have been on the road in the first place.

NTs do stupid things too. Even they drink and drive or speed and if they kill someone, they get punished.

In the USA, the law is you are held responsible for any accidents when you are at fault. If you can't be responsible for your actions on the roads, don't drive. Some people make that good decision because they don't want to be responsible and it wouldn't matter if they had a short attention span or couldn't multi task. The judge might say "What were you doing driving then? Why did you get your license? Getting behind the wheel means you agree you will be held responsible if you are at fault" when the person tries to blame it on their AS or ADHD.

While I am sorry that you've lost your only aspie friend to prison for a while, you have to understand that prison was inevitable. Also, I find it disturbing that he doesn't feel remorse for what he did. Having remorse for inadvertently killing someone is something that most aspies would feel... I don't see that being aspie or auty would make someone less compassionate.

He probably won't serve the full time, by the way. But may I suggest that you get this thread removed, because if a parole board were ever to stumble across it, bang would go his chances of an early release. You shouldn't be talking about how your friend has no remorse for causing a death. It could seriously damage his chances. I've seen stuff I've written on blogs and internets entered into evidence in the past... it's surprising how these things come back to bite you. So, if I were you, I would ask admin to remove this thread post haste.

I don't think the whole "Oh, it was just an accident... you can go now, but be safe out there.." thing will go well with the family of the guy who was slain, either. Like all things in life, every action has a consequence. Assuming he took a traffic education course he would've known that speed limits were put in place for the single sole purpose of saving lives.

I mean, I'm sorry that your friend is going to jail and all, but it's apart of life. If you make a mistake that causes the loss of life... he got a good sentence if you wanna know my opinion. He could've gotten 15 years, even more with a sh***y driving record.

Why should anyone be thrown into jail? There was no malice in anyone involved. There is no malicious urge to quash.

I’m not asking for an exception to be made just for Aspies. What I’m saying applies to everyone.



It would depend on whether they knew or not exactly what would happen when they stopped taking their medication.

No one with a mental illness causing them to do things should be held accountable for their actions in the same way as someone without a mental illness. There’s no such thing as retribution. The only official response to an atrocity is to locate the cause and determine what actions need to be undertaken to prevent it from happening again, which in many cases is nothing at all (such as this one), but which in cases of paedophiles should never amount to imprisonment, but a form of hospitalization, coupled with protection from those who would naturally be out to get them for doing what they did.

People are only punished for the unintended consequences of their non-malicious actions as an act of revenge.

Why shouldn’t an Autistic person use Autism as a defence in court in such an example? They didn’t decide to give themselves a driver’s license. There is no law saying people with Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome can’t drive.

In my opinion everyone should use anything and everything as a defence in court. Why would anyone let their guard down when their entire life is in jeopardy? Autistic? Great. Troubled childhood? Marvelous. Provoked? Brilliant! As long as the courts purvey this nonsense they call justice, I see no reason for honesty or consistency in a defence. f**k them.



Destruction to your house when a tornado is en route is also inevitable. You wouldn't stay silent and not complain or mourn that it has happened. "Inevitable" does not imply good or bad in any way. In this thread I am pointing out that this "inevitable" is far from "good". In fact it is "bad" to the extent that it is worse than what it believes it is punishing.



That’s because they’re biased and delusional as a result of bereavement.



It’s been made a part of life by the vengeful, bloodthirsty establishment.



There is no such thing as a good sentence.