should aspies have to go to prison?

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After having a day to think about this. I think a case can be made to send aspies to a mental health facility insteady of a prison. I just say that because an aspie would be slaughtered in jail. it just isnt a safe area for them to be in. Surrounded by street smart, clever, manipulative thugs. It can only lead to more trouble. Im only thinking of the well being of the accused. Prison time shouldnt be shortened, in either situation.

If you can't to the time don't do the crime.
Cliched but true.

Anyone that uses AS as a get out of jail free card is a nob-head in my opinion and is giving us all a bad name.
(I'm looking at you Gary Mckinnon, I noticed your diagnosis came conveniently while your trial was on)

Haha, notice how the poll doesn't add up to 100%. I thought it always works out for 2 numbers if you round it properly. If one number has less than half for decimal places, the other must have half or more for decimal places.

Edit: I have calculated it and it always rounds down.

Aspies have the same rights, responsibilities and duties as NTs. No free passes for Aspies.

ruveyn

There's many cases where people with an ASD, "AS" included, were wrongly imprisoned and their ASD was to blame, not them.

One, for example:

There was a young man with undiagnosed HFA/AS working at a bank or some such, and a coworker told him to keep some money behind in a certain place (the guy was stealing money and he saw how naive the individual with an ASD was); said individual with an ASD did this without realizing what he was actually doing (he was following orders of a senior coworker after all). He was first sent to jail, but then they realized he had an ASD and his naivety was to blame, as he didn't have the guilty mind and the intent to commit the crime.

You need a guilty mind and also intent to commit a crime to be criminally responsible (actus reus and mons rea).

However, one can have these two things and not be found liable, take for example this case:

A teenager was constantly bullied at school, and since he had AS, he was unable to communicate it properly to the required authorities (they knew that it was going on too); after prolonged and severe bullying, the individual with AS stabbed and almost killed the bully. He was found not guilty by the judge due to his AS, and his punishment was to see a psychiatrist for a set amount of time.

It ain't as clear cut as many of you people are making it out.

We all know the rules of society and we have the ability to abide by them.

Ah, but do you see what the judge found in the second case I cited?

The individual was unable to communicate adequately due to his AS, which led on to him being charged with attempted murder. He was found not guilty directly due to his AS. I don't know if this case set a precedent or not, but there it is, and I agree with the judge completely, as I know what the communication difficulties are like, even with AS. He intended to kill the bully, even if it was to stop the bullying.

It's the same thing as "battered wife syndrome" for the most part (the wife is effectively trapped and can't break the cycle without drastic action).

The case is up on Auslii IIRC. I'll find it later.

The judge concluded that the bullying was prolonged and severe enough, and that all avenues of approach were exhausted for the individual with AS, even though there was no direct physical threat to the life of the individual. The judge noted that the AS was a factor in the decision (the main one actually), and it was directly due to the communication problems involved with AS.

It's easy to see where it starts; prolonged emotional abuse without the ability to ask for help, and all the individual has is a physical response....

Emotional abuse is actually assault, though it doesn't warrant a response of lethal force in nearly all cases; rare circumstances happen though, like this one above.

There is a huge difference between knowingly committing a crime and using autism as an excuse, and many circumstances that can cause autistic people to unknowingly commit crimes. I think a lot of people on this thread are assuming that all possible cases where autism becomes involved are the first kind.

Some kinds of criminals work by persuading socially naive people to do things for them, while hiding the nature of what is really going on from the socially naive person. (Who often has either an intellectual impairment or some form of autism.) That way the naive person may get blamed for the crime.

I know there are people on this board who swear up and down that everyone diagnosed with AS can see through things like that but it's just not true. And it's completely unfair to treat cases like this the same as when someone murders someone and goes "I can't help it, I have AS." (Which infuriates me too.)

While I think there needs to be some good way to keep the most dangerous people from running around killing people, I also think the current prison system is far from it, especially in the USA which has more people locked up than comparable nations and is incredibly racist among other things. Our prison system also takes petty criminals and turns them into hardened criminals. I know too many people who have been in prison to ever call it an instrument of justice though, it dehumanizes people in ways not even the most evil people deserve. Prison also creates people so fearful of how they will function outside of it that they commit more crimes to be put back in.

At the same time I think all that on a systemic level. Not on a group by group basis where "aspies" are specially deserving of not being there. And if an "aspie" (or someone calling themselves that for convenience) goes around murdering people, there has to be some way to stop them. (Mental institutions are no permanent solution either, the same dehumanization occurs there to the point some people deliberately commit crimes so they'll be sent to prison instead because they prefer it.)

But back to the main topic, it really is possible for an "aspie" to be so naive that they don't know they're being tricked into doing a criminal's dirty work for them. It really does happen. And no amount of wishful thinking on the order of "but if we acknowledge that then it'll be a bad reputation for us" will change that. Think "can you deliver/carry/etc. this package for me", "here, wait for me outside this building and drive me away," etc.

I went to prison because I was duped by more socially savvy criminals. I also went to prison because as a younger adult, I used illegal substances to manage my undiagnosed ASD traits. I am accountable for breaking the law in my youth, even though I did so in order to "self-medicate." One has to tease these issues out carefully and thoroughly in order to make retrospective sense of them and in order to understand one's own level of responsibility and accountability in such matters.

It is far too complex an issue to consider simply in terms of "should ASD people go to prison?" It depends on level of accountability and awareness (consciousness of crime) or degree of naivety in relation to what has transpired criminally.

One thing I do know from experience....living on the streets, and also being in prison, are particularly brutal for ASD people who can develop some street survival skills (depending on their trait presentations,) but NOTHING LIKE that which is required in order to come through such life experiences unscathed and without abuse. It is a sad reality. My experience is that I was prone to being taken advantage of by others in that realm.

Thankfully it is a long time ago now.

duh - there already