I am not a Killer

[chaoticidealism]

You know that study, the one that's been in the news lately, about how lots of serial killers are autistic?

This one?That study... Yeah, it's bad science, or bad journalism, depending on whether it's the researcher or the reporter who made the leap from "people say you have autism" to "you actually have autism

Comments

[ada_hoffmann]

*MASSIVELY HEADDESKS*

Thank you for this. Can I link to it in my next Autism News? (I think I've linked to you without asking before... Not sure why I feel a compulsion to ask for permission this time, but I do. Maybe because of the subject matter.)

[chaoticidealism]

Yep, I've noticed; I get a notification when you link to me. And yes, it's fine

[nightengalesknd]

I don't think the reporters in these instances are thinking about autistic people at all. . .

Normal people don't kill

[ada_hoffmann]

If you want to keep safe, don't avoid autistic people, avoid 19 year old males. They are the highest age and sex group for crime: perhaps they have too many hormones and not enough experience to control them. Anyway, when I looked at crime statistics, sex and age (and a childhood background in poverty/long term unemployment) seem to be far more relevant than autism. Hardly any criminal sentence judgments (I have searched over thousands in my state) mention autism or Asperger's - they are more likely to mention ADHD, conduct disorder, etc and things like indigenous background (usually a sign of poverty and marginalisation), and even more so things like drugs and alcohol. It is possible, in my opinion, that a murderer who is autistic will do it differently (perhaps "more efficiently") than non-autistic murderers - and that might make for sensational headlines when it happens. But that has nothing to do with the likelihood of an autistic person being violent. We are - especially the classically autistic - less dangerous than the average

[fishlivejournal]

conclusion - journalists aren't a reliable source for news.

[timeprojectile]

My suspicion is that it has to do with both ASD and killers being conflated with the "unsociable loner stereotype" in the popular mind. Few are informed enough about psychology to know, for instance, that murder is most commonly associated with sociopathy, not ASD, and that sociopathy is a condition in which "cognitive empathy" (guessing how others will think/feel) is intact or even superior to average while "emotive empathy" (actually caring how others think/feel) is absent, whereas ASD is generally associated with the opposite profile.

There also seems to be a conflation in the popular mind between milder forms of ASD and the scientific temperament, for similar reasons: that both are associated with having more cognitive and logical abilities and less sociability than average.

[stripeyblackcat]

Thanks for wring this.
I'm worried about how people will treat me if they find out I'm autistic and they read the Daily Mail. I had started to feel safe rocking in public but not any more.
We are scapegoats.

Hang in there

[anonymous]

Hey,
I'm a 56 year old male and an Aspie. It gets easier. The more time you spend in society, the more you understand it. Doesn't mean it makes sense, but.....

Haven't read a lot of your blog yet, but intend to.

Take care,
Dan