Autistic Criminals
First practical use of axioms learned in statistics class:
Autism: 1 in 150
Antisocial PD: 2.1 in 100
Therefore, with a normal rate of each of the three conditions in each of the three populations (independent probability):
Autism AND APD: 2.1 in 15,000
That means that there should be, in any small town, about two autistics who also have antisocial PD. Or, in the entire United States, population 300 million, there should be 42,000 who fit that description.
That one or two will be in the news eventually is obvious.
And yet... when an autistic person commits a willful, hurtful crime... they blame it on autism.
The sheer odds--and the fact that autistics are no more moral than anybody else--suggest that once in a while, a criminal will be autistic. It's silly to deny that this is so.
It's also silly to insist that the criminal activity is due to autism.
I see this as just one more way to dehumanize the autistic person... not by insisting we are all criminals, but by saying that somehow having autism forces us to be criminals, that we're not really choosing to do things that are evil and wrong; that if only we had gotten better early intervention services, we wouldn't have committed the crime.
That's a fallacy.
If a neurotypical person commits a crime, he is presumed to have made a bad choice.
If an autistic person commits a crime (again, I'm counting only things done willfully and not just because he is naive and easily manipulated), he is presumed to have committed it because he is autistic.
This sort of reasoning implies that, unlike the "real" people, we are unable to choose--forever infants. It's the worst sort of prejudice. Oddly enough, I would much rather have it said that an autistic person who deliberately hurt someone did it because he made an immoral choice, than to have it said that he couldn't help it.
We choose freely, as anyone does. Sometimes we choose wrongly; but we do, as any human, have free will.
Autism: 1 in 150
Antisocial PD: 2.1 in 100
Therefore, with a normal rate of each of the three conditions in each of the three populations (independent probability):
Autism AND APD: 2.1 in 15,000
That means that there should be, in any small town, about two autistics who also have antisocial PD. Or, in the entire United States, population 300 million, there should be 42,000 who fit that description.
That one or two will be in the news eventually is obvious.
And yet... when an autistic person commits a willful, hurtful crime... they blame it on autism.
The sheer odds--and the fact that autistics are no more moral than anybody else--suggest that once in a while, a criminal will be autistic. It's silly to deny that this is so.
It's also silly to insist that the criminal activity is due to autism.
I see this as just one more way to dehumanize the autistic person... not by insisting we are all criminals, but by saying that somehow having autism forces us to be criminals, that we're not really choosing to do things that are evil and wrong; that if only we had gotten better early intervention services, we wouldn't have committed the crime.
That's a fallacy.
If a neurotypical person commits a crime, he is presumed to have made a bad choice.
If an autistic person commits a crime (again, I'm counting only things done willfully and not just because he is naive and easily manipulated), he is presumed to have committed it because he is autistic.
This sort of reasoning implies that, unlike the "real" people, we are unable to choose--forever infants. It's the worst sort of prejudice. Oddly enough, I would much rather have it said that an autistic person who deliberately hurt someone did it because he made an immoral choice, than to have it said that he couldn't help it.
We choose freely, as anyone does. Sometimes we choose wrongly; but we do, as any human, have free will.