Making peace with the police.

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I was a bit of a juvenile delinquent in my youth and young adulthood. There where a couple of times that I came close to losing my freedom, and thank my mental health team of that time, in keeping me on the straight and narrow.

I have done many bad things in the past, and I spent many years, asking for forgiveness and being forgiven. I took the consequences of my actions and paid my karmic dues, but I never got over my terrible fear of the police.

I have Aspergers Syndrome. I did not know it at the time, and even if I did, it is not an excuse for my behaviour, but at least I would have been able to communicate my fear of being touched or handled. I would have been able to warn those police officers just doing their job, that I might react instinctively if they touched me in a certain way, or if they startled me, I would be likely to bite them if a fearful attempt to protect myself. I cannot even begin to explain the terrible sense of mortality that would come over me when dealing with them. And due to my lack of eye contact, or my instant mutism, or my semi-catatonic state that would steal over me as my sympathetic nervous system shut down, they would make my life hell. They would misinterpret the signs and accuse me of being uncooperative. In disgust, they would throw me in hospital, and I hated them with every fibre of my being.

My therapist, who is an AS specialist, has come up with an idea. He wants me to sit down with a police officer in a place of my choosing and tell that person how I feel. My deep distrust of them, the fact that I will cross the street to get away from them, the fact that every time I come within feet of a police officer I feel that I am going to have a full scale melt down. My therapist has contacts in the police service who actually do this kind of thing. They go out and talk to people who have a fear of the police.

I am both terrified and strangely exhilarated. I will be very honest. I will own up to my behaviour and be forgiven. I will also forgive........and make peace with them so I can live without at least one fear that dominates my life.

Mics

Er... I think your therapist may need to come back down to Earth. The police are busy enough without sitting down for friendly therapeutic chats, unless your therapist knows someone willing.

Honestly, just avoid getting in trouble in future and if you see someone/something in trouble, report it; that will get you a lot more brownie points in their books. Also, maybe you could join a neighbourhood watch or something, or volunteer to help with programmes for disadvantaged kids?

In the UK, we have Community Support Officers which are police officers that don't have powers of arrest and are basically there to help build relations with local communities. This sort of thing would be right up their street.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Com ... cer#Powers

im not sure what to think of this but id be interested to know how it goes, and if you even manage to arrange it in the first place

fat load of good they are. arent they getting rid of them and getting lots of volunteers instead anyway..

It isn't about brownie points, it is about overcoming a fear. What my therapist is concerned about and I am too, is that if I was ever in danger I would hesitate to call the police to help me. That is the problem. And yes, my therapist knows someone willing. That is why he suggested it.

It is not my social conscience that is in question, it is the innate terror and loathing I have of authority and uniforms. despite my fear of police, I have always tried to do the right thing since my transgressions of the past.

Mics

I can understand an officer meeting with a group pf people to answer questions and explain policies and procedures and so on, but your therapist must be some kind of feely-touchy nut! No two officers are the same, and even the nicest ones can still leave me suspicious because I know that "nice" can disappear in a heartbeat, if necessary.

Like someone else said, just keep yourself on the good side of the law and let other people entertain the cops.

I am also sure that the police will not have the time to spare to sit down for a touchy feely chat with you.

My advice is to walk the straight and narrow (do not break the law) and behave in a polite and reasonable way at all times and places. I would also advise you to cooperate with the police by telling them about any strange things which you see which might be a sign of a crime. I once phoned the police and told them about what I thought was a stolen car. It was parked (more like dumped) in the middle of the road with the doors wide open early one weekend morning. Also I told them what I had just found when I spotted the local kids setting fire to rubbish.

If however the police come and accuse you of doing something, then my advice is to

1. Tell them you have AS (Even if they do not know about AS or ignore this, it may help your lawyer at a later date)
2. Give them your name and address
3. Ask for a lawyer
4. Shut up and tell them nothing else

I personally think this is a great idea if you think it may help with your fear.

My meltdowns keep on getting me into police trouble and what is worst is that my current police fear makes me look as if im guilty of doing something.

i try to stay out of police trouble but with the meltdowns.. its impossible.. people ring the police when they see me having one and from there, the police often dont know how to handle it so make things even worst for me. (resulting in an ambulance being called to take me to hospital a lot.. 2-3 times this year already).

Last meltdown i had with police involvement was only about 5 days ago.. after they came to my door during middle of the night. That scared me and triggered off a huge meltdown. Im still trying to recover from torn shoulder tendon from the police in a meltdown i had abou 5 mths ago.

Opps dulpicate post, PC trouble. Sorry.

Our city force employs community liaison officers who perform exactly this kind of work, and the force believes it is a very important part of their work.

They attend group meetings (like residents associations and neighbourhood watch) as well as youth centres and old people's homes.

A one-on-one chat is not likely to happen, but maybe you can call (or have someone else call) a liaison officer and ask where there might be one or more of their upcoming meetings you can attend. Or, I can imagine a local support group for autistic people and their families might occasionally have a meeting like that.

That's cool. If you do meet up with an officer, probably worthwhile mentioning that you've done your best since you last got in trouble. Sorry, when I said 'brownie points' I should have explained that better; I meant that if you report things and generally help out, it will help you feel on their side too (i.e. less of the enemy), not just that they will like you. But if you're averse to them to begin with, that wouldn't work.

At the moment, do you think you'd call the police if you needed to?

I think this would be a very wise idea. My own fears of police officers were pretty severe for quite some time. If one was to pull up behind me on the road, I would start shaking, and freaking out to the point that I had to immediately pull over. Thankfully none of them found this suspicious or I am sure a horrible situation would have followed.

I have now gotten things under better control, and I only really become uncomfortable during direct interaction with them.