Should someone suffering from autism syndrome be held accountable for their actions and punished?
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Should someone suffering from autism syndrome be held accountable for their actions and punished?
Yes, people on the autistic spectrum can go to jail. Unfortunately, police don’t know how to distinguish normal Autistic behavior from signs of drug use or mental illness. Avoiding eye contact can be misinterpreted as guilt or insubordination. Autistic and Asperger’s people are also more likely to fall for interrogation techniques and fail to protect their rights. They’re also likely to instinctively struggle when arrested.
Just like non autistic people I am sure there are some autistic people that do go to jail. The reason that autistic people would be arrested and go to jail is because the encounter with the police officer does not go well. Often times when a person with autism encounters a police officer the officer does not know that the person has autism. Then when the person with autism does not follow directions immediately because he does not handle being yelled at he goes into defense mode then the officer thinks he is refusing to follow sieections and the officer thinks he is refusing arrest and it goes down hill from there. It just takes some compassion and recognition on what the officer is dealing with and the whole encounter could have been avoided.