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The Autism Spectrum and the Criminal Justice System

Cosmophylla

Cosmophylla

(coz-MOFF-illa)
V.I.P Member
I heard this on the radio a couple of days ago. It's worth a listen, or you can read the transcript. The show is about 25 minutes long. It's an interview with the co-authors of a new book, Crime and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Myths and Mechanisms. http://www.jkp.com/usa/crime-and-autism-spectrum-disorder.html


Here is the show: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational...ctrum-and-the-criminal-justice-system/6755196


It's good to know there are some people out there trying to bring change and education to law enforcement agencies.
 
Mia said:
The book seems quite interesting, its likely that I'll order it. It brings together two interests of mine. Thanks for links Cosmophylla have surmised that some of the people who end up in prison have ASD or autism and grew up with friends and or family who turned to criminal activity for various reasons.
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You're welcome, Mia I've been wondering about my brother being on the spectrum for a while, and he has been in trouble with the law.
 
Last November I was driving home from after spending a weekend in Oregon. I was planning to go farther south, down into the Redwoods near the Oregon-California border, but I ended up just relaxing by myself the entire weekend. I decided to depart back to Seattle during the evening to avoid traffic, and naturally like some Aspies, I'm a night owl at heart.

I was driving over the speed limit and a state patrol officer pulled me over. Instead of just giving me a steep speeding ticket, he decided to search my entire vehicle. He pointed out that I seemed uneasy and nervous, and I mentioned that I had a mild form of autism. "My son has that it," he said. I don't believe that one bit, because he seemed so cruel to me even after me saying that. I happened to have some supplements that I ordered in bulk from online sources such as bulksupplements.com. He accused one of the unlabelled supplements as being MDMA, something that I never had touched or used in my life.

This incident was traumatizing for me. I received two tickets, one for the speeding and one for the accusation of possessing MDMA. I was to have to attend court a month from that date. A month later, after leaving Seattle around 3am so that I would arrive in Salem, Oregon on time around when the time of the court event, I called in noting I may be a little late.

I was told simply to turn back home and that the charges were dismissed.

I don't see where the justice is there?

 
I've never been in a car that was pulled over without it being searched. It's why I detest when people speed with me in the car, it's so horrible! -._-.
 
Questella said:
I've never been in a car that was pulled over without it being searched. It's why I detest when people speed with me in the car, it's so horrible! -._-.
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I with my uncle one time and we were on a road trip from Las Vegas to Reno. We took turns driving, of course. At one point my uncle was driving just 10 over the speed limit and suddenly the police lights are behind us and he pulls over.

They look over at me and from making pre-assumptions about my appearance. They searched through my bag and found supplements similar to the ones I describe in my above post. I was handcuffed. After 2-3 hours of testing with their silly chemical kit, I was let free under the fact that none of the supplements turned out to be illegal drugs. They did not give my uncle a speeding ticket. We arrived at Reno too late to do anything because of that delay.

Is that what you mean by always being searched?
 
23andaspie said:
I with my uncle one time and we were on a road trip from Las Vegas to Reno. We took turns driving, of course. At one point my uncle was driving just 10 over the speed limit and suddenly the police lights are behind us and he pulls over.

They look over at me and from making pre-assumptions about my appearance. They searched through my bag and found supplements similar to the ones I describe in my above post. I was handcuffed. After 2-3 hours of testing with their silly chemical kit, I was let free under the fact that none of the supplements turned out to be illegal drugs. They did not give my uncle a speeding ticket. We arrived at Reno too late to do anything because of that delay.

Is that what you mean by always being searched?
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Yeah, pretty much, they never find anything on me though, but it usually takes a good hour or two out of our day.

Why do they have to be so horrible, all while the people they should be messing with just charm them off. *ugh*
 
It's gotten to the point where if I'm driving by myself and I even see a cop I get such anxiety I usually have to pull off the road somewhere (like a store, mall) so I can calm down. Once I thought I was being tailed by the cops so bad I pulled into a mall parking lot and ran inside and walked around the mall for like forty minutes. The same cop didn't follow me in but then other cops pulled up near me at the mall when I was getting out and I was completely convinced it was all connected. I ended up buying some magazines from a bookstore and idk what else. :(

I don't leave the house much.

When I was a teen I had a few instances where a cop would come up to me and straight accuse me of being on drugs and would threaten to take me to the hospital for drug tests (at this age I had never even considered drugs, or really knew what they even were except Tylenol) but either he didn't really care and just like scaring kids or had no real basis they didn't follow through.

Once I got pulled over and somebody had stolen my wallet with my id and I didn't know it and was driving and they towed my car because they wouldn't look up my name I was giving them and said I was driving illegally and threatened to send me to jail but I managed to get somebody that was up the street to come save me.

#notAfanOfCops
 
Back when I couldn't ever understand why I always, ALWAYS got messed with so bad, at least now I know even if it doesn't help me not getting messed with... :/
 
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I'm scared of cops because I have a pitbull dog, and I've heard so many stories of cops shooting pitbulls who weren't doing anything other than being ordinary dogs. For instance, one family got pulled over and was told to get out of their van. The cop left a door open, and their pitbull dog got out. The dog ran away from everybody, then turned and started running towards everybody (normal dog behavior to run towards his beloved family) and the cop shot him.
I've seen my dog run towards me, and to someone who was scared of dogs, it would look scary. But my dog is just so beautiful, so relaxed, and enjoying running very fast towards me.
 
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