There are many problems with policing in the United States and elsewhere. The cult of compliance is a problem. The tyranny of the norm is a problem. Pseudoscience is a problem. The drug war and its benighted notions of addiction are a problem. Rampant racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism in police training is a problem.

These problems are a recipe of terror for neurodivergent and disabled people.

Disabled people, particularly people of color with disabilities, are policed and criminalized. Disabled people of color are targeted in public spaces through aggressive policing strategies and make up a disproportionate number of police killings. In addition, disabled people of color are overrepresented in jails, prisons, and other carceral settings.

Students with psychiatric disabilities and students of color are particularly vulnerable to in-school policing through threat assessments, crisis intervention programs, and other forms of surveillance, and often tracked into the criminal legal system on account of behaviors criminalized in schools. The rate of law enforcement referrals for students reveals clear intersectional marginalization, rising from 36 of 10,000 students for White students, to 88 for Native-American students, 93 for Black students, and 113 for students with disabilities, and soars to 221 for Black boys with disabilities, and 235 for Native-American boys with disabilities.

33 Years and Still So Much Work Must be Done: A Reflection on the ADA at 33 | by Jordyn Jensen, Jamelia Morgan, and Nicholas Lawson | CRDJ | Medium

We are weird. We are different. That shouldn’t be a crime, but in our #CultOfCompliance societies, being different will get you interrogated, beaten, jailed, and killed.

The receipts are endless.

CW: ableism, racism, abuse, police violence

Here at the start of February, Black History Month in the U.S., officially designated by each President since 1976 and refigured more recently as Black Futures Month, white supremacist ableist violence seems timeless.

We bear witness again and again to the police murders of Deaf and disabled Black people, including Tyre Nichols and Anthony Lowe, Jr. May their memories be for revolution.

The verbs that awareness/history/acceptance months produce – we “honor,” we “highlight, we “reflect on” – seem vague and empty compared to the material, bodily harm that ableism creates. The time of life is being stolen from BIPOC disabled people under the cover of our complacency.

The Ableist Violence of Police Terror

Just over four years ago, I entered the tube station without looking at the police officers who were standing by the entrance. Two other men entered the station at the same time. My jacket was allegedly too warm for the season. I was carrying a backpack. While waiting for the tube, I looked at people coming on the platform, I played with my mobile phone, I took a piece of paper from inside my jacket.

The police found my behaviour suspicious and instigated a security alert. They surrounded me. They asked me to take off my backpack. They handcuffed me in the back. They closed and cordoned off the tube station. They stopped and searched me under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They emptied my pockets. They loosened my belt. Explosive officers checked my backpack, gave the all clear and joked about my laptop. The handcuffs were taken off (for a few minutes) and some of the stuff I was carrying in my pockets was given back to me.

This should have been the end of the matter. Instead, an officer informed me “I was under arrest on suspicion of causing a Public Nuisance”. They then took me to Walworth police station. They processed me. They took photographs, DNA samples, fingerprints and palm prints. They searched our flat. They interviewed me. Nine hours later I was granted bail. One month later when I surrendered to custody, they said they have decided to take no further action. It takes a further month and half to get my possessions back. Three months after the arrest, the Police National Computer was still listing me as under arrest.

Calm, almost too calm

We are schooled to act as neurotypical as possible to avoid triggering police escalation. We have to defy our neurologies to avoid deadly conflict.

Police profiling is ableist and ignorant pseudoscience that we must mask against to avoid interaction.

This act of masking in the face of imminent violence is, for the most part, impossible to maintain. We have to “just take it”, but it’s hard.

The Talk: Just Take It

I had “the talk” with my kids this morning in the car. Not the “birds and the bees” talk. The “how to stay alive because you’re black and therefore a threat” talk. Don’t wear that dark gray hoodie you love anymore. Make eye contact with authorities at all times—forget everything I’ve ever taught you about how forced eye contact is a bad thing…do it anyway, even if it hurts. Speak in a soft, gentle tone. Keep your hands where they can see them at all times. No sudden or unexpected movements and ABSOLUTELY no stimming or fidgeting or flapping as it might be perceived as attempting to strike someone. No echolalia, as it might be perceived as trying to “mock” an officer. No going to the mall with a group of friends if more than two people are male-presenting and of color. Say “yes, sir,” and “no, sir” with each statement. No nervous laughter. No sarcasm. Do everything that they ask of you even if it is unlawful. If they want to know your name, age, shoe size, whatever—just tell them. If they violate your rights we will file a complaint after the fact, but do not address it with them in the moment. If they hit you, shout at you, insult you, spit on you, just take it. We will seek justice for the wrongdoing through the legal channels. Don’t put yourself at risk by trying to stand up for yourself.

Just take it.

They listened quietly. Asked me if it was okay to just run away. Inwardly I kicked myself for forgetting to mention running. “No,” I replied. “Absolutely no running.”

All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism

We are also vulnerable to hate crimes or discrimination that affects us on both fronts. For instance, a young black autistic man, Neli Latson, was imprisoned for four years after being arrested outside his local library in Virginia while he was waiting for it to open.

As Kerima Çevik writes, “This disaster is the intersection of autism, ableism and racism colliding with the school to prison pipeline. See everyone who is poor in Black America prepares their son for that moment. They teach them the social cues and red flags. They tell them to have a way to make that phone call and an understanding that they will be harassed by police at some point. But autism parents are told they need to teach compliance and concrete ideas about police to their autistic children.

Latson found himself being mistreated not only because he was a black man who had the audacity to be in public, but also because he was an autistic man schooled in compliance.

All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism

Tell me how do I explain to such a person that the problem with Neli Latson is not simply “autism causing him to act out”?  How will they understand that there is a world in which the color of one’s skin is enough to get an arrest record whether one commits a crime or not? How to hammer home that all of this combined with a bigot who called 911 as a “concerned citizen” saw a black man in a hoodie waiting for the public library to open and decided to lie and say they saw a gun doomed Neli before he ever encountered that school resource officer? Because I’ve tried. And they just can’t leave the world they live in long enough to understand this one.

Their world is comfortable and safe. They don’t have to do anything but mumble words of sympathy because they are so confident it won’t happen to their autistic child. Why should it? They are sure their social position, income, and race keeps their children safe. They forget something very important. Neli Latson would not have come to this horrible pass had he not also been autistic. This disaster is the intersection of autism, ableism and racism colliding with the school to prison pipeline. See everyone who is poor in Black America prepares their son for that moment. They teach them the social cues and red flags. They tell them to have a way to make that phone call and an understanding that they will be harassed by police at some point.  But autism parents are told they need to teach compliance and concrete ideas about police to their autistic children. It gives autism parents a false sense of security about their teens encountering police.

Every autism parent who  secretly thinks a police training course,  safety movie,  who they know,  their race or wealth will keep this from happening to their child can think again. Ableism is as obvious in this case as racism. Neli was a popular student,  well known in the area and that is why he was able to walk to the library alone without prior incident. But the person who called 911 that day was tired of seeing the Black autistic kid waiting for the library to open. Black and neurodivergent was just too different for tolerance. The fact that to this day, the caller’s identity is hidden is very damning.

Neli did not understand the intersection of racism and abuse of power. He understood the rules of police engagement and was taught that everyone had rights under the law. That of course does not leave room for how to react when racism places a black body in jeopardy. No one told him that Black males are routinely harassed by police and if the officer doesn’t like the look of them, they will arrest them on any excuse. Neli wasn’t taught what to do if the police should continue to escalate or try to incite an act that might result in an arrest. He was not told to remain passive even if insulted, beaten or arrested even if he had done nothing wrong. He reacted as he did in high school wrestling matches when set upon. This reaction destroyed his life.

For four years, I have felt like I’ve been in a nightmare where I scream and people see my mouth move but no sound is heard. No matter what I did or do, no one sees or hears Neli.  Neli’s former attorney was ignorant of autism so the defense was a disaster as it in fact supported the case that autism makes Neli dangerous.  The Washington Post at one point flipped its initial and recent balanced coverage of the case to support this incorrect perspective of the “dark side of autism” complete with parent interviews. The presentation of the unfortunate defense case opened the way to a 25 year sentence. Autism organizations used Neli’s case as a cautionary tale of the evils of not using  early intervention where “therapy” means compliance training through ABA and then promoted their own first responder training materials.

Intersected: Making Neli Latson Matter: The Invisible Intersected Black Members of The Autism Community

I’m just walking
Trying to get home
I ain’t doin nothing
Just leave me alone

Lord, give me wings to fly
Before they shoot me down
And I die
Don’t let them shoot me down
And I die

Whoa, whoa-o-o-o, put down your gun and take your hands off me
Whoa, whoa-o-o-o, put down your gun and take your hands off me

Officer, officer, officer
I know you’re afraid like me
But look at my hands
Please don’t shoot me

In Plain Language

Police violence affects people with disabilities. It especially affects Black people with disabilities. Here are some ways police violence hurts people with disabilities:

• Up to half of the people hurt by police are people with disabilities.
• When police kill people, they blame the person’s disability. For example:
  • Sometimes, police choke someone to death. Then, they try to say that the person died because they had asthma, high blood pressure, or another medical condition. But the person wouldn’t have died if they weren’t choked.
• Police think our disabilities mean that we are violent or suspicious. For example:
  • Autistic people might move differently. We might not make eye contact, and we might not talk. We might not be able to understand directions. We might have meltdowns. Police officers can say these things are threatening. Police officers have arrested, hurt, and sometimes killed many autistic people.
  • Many of the people killed by the police are having mental health problems. People with mental health disabilities are not more violent than anyone else. But police think they are. Instead of helping the person calm down, the police shoot them.
  • Deaf people might not be able to hear what a police officer is saying. The police have shot Deaf people for not following directions, even when other people are yelling that the person is Deaf.
• Police are in schools. Sometimes a kid with a disability will be having a problem. When that happens, teachers are supposed to help. But sometimes, school police will come instead. Instead of helping, police will arrest the kid. Often, they will hurt the kid.
• Police are in hospitals. If someone in a hospital is upset and having problems, the doctors are supposed to help them. But sometimes, they call the police instead. Then, the police arrest the person and take them to jail. They might hurt the person. This also means the person does not get the health care they needed in the hospital.
• People with disabilities get put in jail more often than people without disabilities.

None of these things should happen to anyone, whether or not they have a disability. But they do. They happen more often to people with disabilities. And, they happen most often to Black people with disabilities.

What is Police Violence?: A plain language booklet about anti-Black racism, police violence, and what you can do to stop it – Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Training Isn’t the Answer: Stop Treating Noncompliance as Justification for Violence

Police don’t need better training; they need to stop treating noncompliance as justification for violence.

…escalation in the face of noncompliance puts disabled people in danger every time they encounter the cops. In fact, what I call the cult of compliance puts everyone in danger, if not equally.

Bascom notes that stimming is often treated as aberrant or undesirable behavior by authority figures—not just police, but also teachers and parents. “That said, and this is important,” she continued, this case is not about lack of awareness regarding autism. “Regardless of why he was stimming, this young man should never have been approached at all. ‘Bouncing around’ isn’t a crime. Being autistic in public isn’t a crime. There was absolutely no justification for this young man to be stopped, and obviously no reason for him to have been restrained or slammed to the ground.”

Both he and Bascom, as well as numerous other experts I consulted from the disability-rights and police-reform movements emphasized that this is not a matter of lacking training, but rather the criminalization of any behavior deemed abnormal or undesirable.

So what do we do? When incidents like these happen, departments and some advocates often focus on two deeply troubling solutions: training and registries. Both are based on the idea that police just don’t recognize disability when they see it, or don’t know what to do if they recognize it. Instead, we need to reframe policing, decriminalize noncompliance, and remove police from as many situations as possible.

4 Disabled Dead in Another Week of Police Brutality

But no one had trained him to recognize one of the classic signs of autism: the repetitive movements that autistic people rely on to manage their anxiety in stressful situations, known as self-stimulation or “stimming.” That’s what Connor was doing with the string when Officer Grossman noticed him while he was on patrol.

Studies show that these kinds of interactions between disabled people and law enforcement are terrifyingly common, and often go unreported. A white paper published last year by the Ruderman Family Foundation reported, “Disabled individuals make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers.”

Opinion | The Police Need to Understand Autism – The New York Times

The significance of the events in Missouri extends beyond the very real and terrible pattern of police killings of African-American men. It is an intensification of years of cultural shift in which law enforcement and other authority figures have increasingly treated noncompliance as a reason to initiate violence.

This cult of compliance provides the point of intersection between racism and militarization of law enforcement — the primary factors at play in Ferguson — and other issues, such as the overuse of stun guns and the failure of police to respond to the needs of the mentally ill. Police may be motivated by their racism to harass people of color, but when officers get violent, they almost always cite a form of noncompliance as their justification.

In many cases, people who die at the hands of the police don’t obey commands, and the police initiate violence despite there being no imminent threat to their safety.

Mental illness has been sidelined as a separate issue requiring specialized training rather than included in broader conversations. To my knowledge, this is the first time that any major law enforcement official has included police violence against minorities and police violence against those with disabilities in the same review and identified them as part of the same broader problem.  

It’s a link that needs to be made. In the vast majority of cases, especially those involving young black and Latino men, police can punish someone for noncompliance with impunity, and because of deeply entrenched racism, little is done in the way of reform. But when someone is disabled or unwell, violent police action reveals itself as what it is: disproportionate, crude and uncalled for. It is therefore imperative to consider the two situations side by side and integrate them into a broader discussion about how the police treats people who, for whatever reason, do not comply with their every whim.

First, we have to recognize the common denominators in many of these incidents: that people who die at the hands of the police don’t obey commands and that the police initiate violence, despite there being no imminent threat to their safety.

Ferguson and the cult of compliance | Al Jazeera America

But officers who say they feel more confident after training may not know more about autism than untrained officers, according to a 2020 study. In that analysis, officers with prior training were just as likely as untrained officers to use physical force or handcuffs on an autistic person, or to admit one involuntarily to a hospital. They performed better on a test of autism knowledge after a new training designed by the study authors.

“If you have 50 hours of training on how to make sure you’re in control at all times and tackle people, and then four hours of training on dealing with autistic people, you’re not going to be acting on those four hours of training in a crisis,” says Sam Crane, legal director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

Despite the fact that many officers say they feel more confident in their ability to interact with autistic people after training, a small survey of autistic people who’d had police encounters in Canada found that more than half were unhappy with those interactions, with many respondents reporting feeling uncomfortable, anxious and afraid. “There’s this gap between what the police are satisfied with and what members of the public who are autistic are experiencing and their levels of satisfaction,” Drapela says.

Autism training may also be worthless unless it includes accountability, such as penalties for officers who don’t put those lessons into practice, advocates say. “I want a cop to have to think twice before they act,” says Kim Kaiser, program director at The Color of Autism. “They should know that the consequences are going to be swift and harsh.”

Why autism training for police isn’t enough | Spectrum | Autism Research News

Stop Erasing Us

Disability is the missing word in media coverage of police violence.

Disabled individuals make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers. Disabled individuals make up the majority of those killed in use-of-force cases that attract widespread attention. This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated. The media is ignoring the disability component of these stories, or, worse, is telling them in ways that intensify stigma and ableism.

When we leave disability out of the conversation or only consider it as an individual medical problem, we miss the ways in which disability intersects with other factors that often lead to police violence. Conversely, when we include disability at the intersection of parallel social issues, we come to understand the issues better, and new solutions emerge.

THE RUDERMAN WHITE PAPER ON MEDIA COVERAGE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT USE OF FORCE AND DISABILITY

The Ruderman Family Foundation released the first Ruderman White Paper today – a groundbreaking, comprehensive study on the topic of police-related violence and media coverage in cases involving a person with a disability – which shockingly reveals that up to half of all people killed by police in the United States are disabled, and that almost all well-known cases of police brutality involve a person with a disability. This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated.

However, perhaps more shocking is the prevalence of disabilities in these encounters not being accurately or commonly reported. The report, co-authored by professor David M. Perry and award-winning disability activist Lawrence Carter-Long, unveils that media coverage of police violence fails to recognize or report the disability element when Americans are injured or killed by law enforcement, resulting in their stories being segregated from the issue in the media. This report examines the past three years of media coverage relating to police violence and disability, reviewing eight individual cases against people with disabilities since the death of a young man with Down syndrome named Ethan Saylor in January 2013.

In the vast majority of cases within this timeframe, the research reveals the following patterns in the overall data:

• Disability goes unmentioned or is listed as an attribute without context
• An impairment is used to evoke pity or sympathy for the victim
• A medical condition or “mental illness” is used to blame victims for their deaths
• An estimated 80% of all cases that involve disability are categorized as “mental illness”
• In rare instances, where disabilities are used as reason for intersecting forces that lead to dangerous use-of-force incidents, better models for policing in the future are suggested

“This White Paper reveals that people with disabilities are senselessly being subjected to a disproportionate use of force by our police and many of these encounters are leading to unnecessary deaths. Police forces need better practices, policies and procedures when interacting with people with disabilities so that harm by our law enforcement authorities is prevented,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation. “Training is a necessary first step. Reforming the system follows closely behind. The rights of people with disabilities must be respected just like any other American citizen.”

Ruderman Family Foundation » Media Missing the Story: Half of All Recent High Profile Police-Related Killings Are People with Disabilities

The disability status of Black disabled people, from Korryn Gaines to Sandra Bland, are omitted for reasons tied to racism and ableism, and it must be addressed. To erase someone’s disability status is both oppressive and offensive. To see it constantly portrayed regarding the lives and deaths of Black disabled people shows that we as a society do not value Black disabled lives, or the disparities they endure from having multiple marginalized identities.

#CultOfCompliance: Disabled/Deaf People Killed for Non-Compliance and Disability Erasure – This is David M. Perry

Predicitive Policing Perpetuates Prejudice

Predictive policing can also perpetuate existing prejudices in the policing of disabled people – especially disabled people of color. Disability is more prevalent in communities of color,85 and disabled people are also more likely to be lower income,86 meaning that neighborhoods with higher concentrations of people of color and low-income people, which are historically likely to be subjected to increased policing, will also be neighborhoods with higher concentrations of disabled people. Thus, place-based predictive programs can exacerbate the concentration of policing resources in areas with significant numbers of disabled people. Similarly, person-based predictive programs use a range of data to flag certain people as likely threats, including data that can be related to disability but isn’t relevant to whether someone is a threat, raising the risk of profiling as well as self-perpetuating cycles of suspicion and criminalization.

For instance, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office in Florida piloted a “juvenile intelligence analysis” program that created secret lists of students deemed at-risk for potential future crime for reasons including receiving D grades, having 3-4 absences in a quarter, or being victimized by domestic violence – all experiences much more likely to happen to disabled students receiving insufficient support, experiencing chronic illness, or being abused.87

These risks, which may not be possible to mitigate or eliminate, can only serve to deepen existing disparities in policing and incarceration that impact disabled people. Consider:

• Developmentally disabled people, including autistic people and people with intellectual disabilities, are at least seven times more likely to encounter police.88
• Disabled students, especially Black and Brown disabled students, were among students most frequently subjected to school-related arrests, as documented in the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2017-2018 school year.89
• Disabled people, especially those with cognitive and emotional disabilities, are almost 44 percent more likely to be arrested than nondisabled people.90
• Many disabled people experience police brutality because of profiling and misunderstanding characteristics of their disabilities. For instance, autistic people and people with mental illnesses may be perceived as being on drugs, Black people with mobility devices may be profiled as having a violent criminal history,91 and deaf people may be perceived as noncompliant or defiant for not following verbal orders.92

Ableism And Disability Discrimination In New Surveillance Technologies: How new surveillance technologies in education, policing, health care, and the workplace disproportionately harm disabled people – Center for Democracy and Technology

we face a continued crisis of centuries of surveillance and policing of racialized bodies. Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Brown people have always been the targets of state violence and the violence of structural racism. When combined with ableism, those at the intersections live in fear of constant violence without any hope of justice. It’s long past time that our movements, our organizations, our activists in the disability community start addressing our replication of white-centric structures and start challenging racism—and anti-blackness in particular.

While police brutality certainly impacts white disabled people, such as eleven year old Emily Holcomb, arrested and removed from her school in handcuffs after defending herself against violent physical restraint, disabled people of color are particularly vulnerable to state violence.

Many activists within the autistic community will describe ignorance borne of ableism as the root cause for police violence against autistic and other disabled people. They will urge better outreach to police and prosecutors and training on developmental disabilities as the solutions. Yet they will rarely, if ever, acknowledge the equally insidious impact of structural racism not merely on which of us are most vulnerable but also on how our community responds. Police training is important and useful, but no amount of awareness training will erase unconscious ableism and racism. Outreach can lead to better outcomes for some, but those of us who experience multiple layers of marginality cannot rely on police as an institution to protect or serve us. Before they hear our presentation on respectful interaction with autistic people, they see Black and Brown faces and project racialized criminality onto neurodivergent bodies marked doubly by race and disability.

All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism

Ableism Is Rampant in Police Training

A recent investigation by the New Jersey Comptroller revealed that at least 46 states have paid a for-profit training company called NJ Criminal Interdiction—which does business under the name “Street Cop”—to fill police officers’ heads with hateful rhetoric and bad legal advice. At a conference attended by more than 1,000 law enforcement officers from across the country, Street Cop trainers urged police officers to make unconstitutional traffic stops and indiscriminately shoot at those who defy their authority. 

Instead of Violent, Racist Police Training, Ban Most Traffic Stops

CW: slurs, ableism

Several instructors disparaged and dehumanized disabled people, used terms like “m*dget” and “r*tard,” and displayed offensive imagery. And when giving a speech about rendering medical aid, Sean Barnette, a trained medic and deputy sheriff from Oklahoma, advised fellow officers to treat criminal suspects like “live tissue labs” to “practice on.”

Instead of Violent, Racist Police Training, Ban Most Traffic Stops

When Street Cop’s instructors weren’t too busy talking about their penis sizes or mimicking masturbation (yes, really), they were promoting a so-called “Reasonable Suspicion” checklist. The list is riddled with legal inaccuracies about what is needed to justify a traffic stop or search. According to Street Cop, officers should consider drivers suspicious if they tilt their heads, remove their hats, or lick their lips (allegedly to “lubricate lies”). Food wrappers or a backpack on the floor of one’s car are apparently signs of criminal activity. Street Cop trainers also asserted that merely refusing consent to a search is itself suspicious—a claim that federal courts have rejected. Moreover, instructors suggested that it is inherently suspect for drivers to say they don’t understand officers’ questions or ask cops to repeat them. This sort of misinformation makes traffic stops particularly dangerous for people with disabilities or impaired hearing.

Instead of Violent, Racist Police Training, Ban Most Traffic Stops

Pseudoscience Is Rampant in Police Training

Police training programs often have little basis in scientific research, and experts say misinformation runs rampant without anyone to regulate it.

Police Trainings Are Filled With Pseudoscientific Beliefs, Experts Say

According to the California-based Institute on Criminal Justice Training Reform, police trainings rely too much on assumptions, anecdotal information, and unverified information.

Police Trainings Are Filled With Pseudoscientific Beliefs, Experts Say

Police often rely on assumptions, anecdotal information, and unverified information instead of data when it comes to training

Police Trainings Are Filled With Pseudoscientific Beliefs, Experts Say

The Stats Are Overwhelming and the Receipts Are Endless

First consider how many neurodivergent people die following encounters with the police.

In the U.K., a report found that almost two-thirds of people who died during or following police contact in 2018/19 were described as having “mental health concerns” such as bipolar disorder. The same report disclosed that three-quarters of people who committed suicide directly following police contact similarly had disabilities including bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. 

In the U.S., a 2016 report suggested that up to half of people killed by law enforcement officers have a mental disability. Even more worrying, it also found that having a mental disability was sometimes used to blame victims for their deaths. Here we see not just the killing of disabled people but also subsequent ableist gaslighting that allows the practice to continue.

Is Police Abolition a Neurodiversity Issue, Too? | Psychology Today United Kingdom

Neurodivergent individuals are also incarcerated at a strikingly high rate. For instance, people with autism and those with other developmental disabilities are vastly over-represented in the prison population. While only around 1% of the population is autistic, an estimated 9% of the prison population is.

Dyslexic people are also hugely over-represented in the prison population, as evidence by a study of Texan prison inmates published in 2000 and a 2012 report on inmates in a prison in Chelmsford, U.K. Yet, dyslexia is associated with many cognitive strengths as well as limitations—and there is no reason to think that its cognitive features make harming others or breaking the law more likely. Similarly, in their 2015 book Crime and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Myths and Mechanisms, Brewer and Young concluded that there is no “compelling evidence for a conclusion that a diagnosis of ASD—by itself—means a greater likelihood of involvement in crime relative to that of individuals without an ASD” (p. 33).

Given that there is no inherent disposition, autistic and dyslexic people’s higher risk of ending up in prison may be best explained by systemic, structural features of an ableist society—as well as institutional issues in the justice system. 

For instance, the authors of a 2016 U.K. study found that autistic people faced high levels of police discrimination and that police received inadequate training regarding autism. Another recent report from the U.K. found that the justice system limited access to justice by failing to make the appropriate accommodations required by neurodivergent individuals.

Is Police Abolition a Neurodiversity Issue, Too? | Psychology Today United Kingdom

The Tyranny of the Norm: This is Ableism

The violence of the norm that is imposed without ever having to be spoken as such is debilitating. Not only does it normalize education, siphoning out difference of all kinds, but it also forces all bodies who want to be recognized as “knowledgeable” (and thus human) to be organized within an incredibly unimaginative matrix. This violence of course plays out far beyond the academic institution, affecting how bodies are considered to have value to society, even allowing certain bodies to be killed or altered to facilitate neurotypical existence (see Not Dead Yet for an account of how neurodiverse and disabled bodies tend not to be given the same life-saving medical treatment; see the Ashley Treatment for medical procedures that allow parents of disabled children to alter their bodies without their consent).

Histories of Violence: Neurodiversity and the Policing of the Norm

In nearly all media accounts, and throughout much of the research literature, autistic functioning is portrayed in thoroughly ableist terms as a medicalized deficit that requires extensive correction. For many autistic toddlers and young children, the requirement to do things in the same manner as non-autistic kids often means that months and years are spent in some form of intensive behavioral training meant specifically to make them appear less autistic. Educator Lennard Davis (2010) calls the ableist enforcement of normality onto the bodies and minds of disabled people “the tyranny of the norm,” (p. 6) and states that “the ‘problem’ is not the person with disabilities; the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the disabled person” (p. 3).

This problem-focused and medicalized approach to autism, which is devoid of autistic voices and autistic agency, leads to treatments, therapies, and educational approaches that do not respect the humanity, autonomy, or dignity of autistic people – and this is especially true for many of the treatments that are focused on autistic toddlers and young children.

Interrogating Normal: Autism Social Skills Training at the Margins of a Social Fiction | ScholarWorks

The Empire of Normality and the Prison Industrial Complex

Cultural practices of normalisation, where the divergent are changed to become more normal, also shifted following the Spitzerian revolution and the rise of neoliberalism. One place we see this regards the prison complex. During this period the numbers of people with psychiatric disabilities and learning disabilities incarcerated in the prison system continued to grow. By the beginning of the twenty-first century over 50% of prison inmates in the United States and the United Kingdom had dyslexia, while around a quarter have ADHD. Moreover ‘Some of the largest mental health centres in the United States currently operate behind bars, and 40 percent of people diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders face arrest over their lifetimes’.32 Today, people with mental disorder diagnoses, especially Black people, are among the most likely to be arrested, be harassed by the police, or die in police custody.

At the same time, a massively increased use of prison pharmaceuticals has been used alongside electronic tagging and biomedical risk assessment for prison inmates. Sociologist Ryan Hatch describes these as forms of ‘technocorrections’, which aim to reduce costs and subdue prison populations to make them more pliable. Thus by the year 2000 in the United States, for instance, ‘95 percent of maximum/high-security state prisons distributed psychotropics, compared to 88 percent of medium-security prisons and 62 percent of minimum/low-security prisons’. Liat Ben-Moshe has also emphasised how conditions in prison tend to make mental health worse and that even talking therapy often serves oppressive functions in prisons.

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman

Thus, as capitalism further developed and the population grew, its norms hardened, with the abnormal becoming ever-more salient as more of the population fell beyond its new standards of functioning. It was this that necessitated the mass development of these new carceral systems, which, all in their own ways, imprisoned those deemed abnormal.

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman

Indeed, as recent research by the historian Anne Parsons has shown, following the asylum closures, the prison industrial complex began to grow massively. But now it mainly incarcerated not just the (often) white former inmates of asylums. Rather, it grew to incarcerate, in much greater numbers, mad or disabled Black people alongside mad or disabled white people.

Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman

Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodivergent Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

At a crisis point, service users often found that they did not have the needed support networks, and therefore as a result, many had turned to alcohol and drugs which then had led to a life of criminality. Many told us that due to their neurodiversity, they are easily manipulated, coerced, groomed, or susceptible to peer pressure.

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

This study finds a criminal justice system ill-prepared to help neurodivergent people. In police custody, only 2 service users had adjustments made around their neurodiversity, whereas in prison, 15 said adjustments had been made. Because of lack of assessments and screening in prisons, we found that only few were receiving the support they needed.

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

Too little is known of how many people in the system are neurodivergent and its relationship with offending and reoffending. It is estimated that although only 15% of the general population has a neurodiverse condition, as many as half the people in the criminal justice system as a whole and 1 in 3 people in prison are impacted by neurodiversity.

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

• Most of the people we interviewed have not been educated about their neurodiverse condition or how it impacts their emotions, feelings, or ways to communicate.
• The majority had continuously been labelled ‘stupid’, ‘bad’ or ‘naughty’ when they were children and lived their lives according to this label.
• The majority of service users we spoke to had experienced childhood adversity and/or trauma.
• Many have been over-medicated throughout their lives, and no other support for their neurodiverse needs has been offered.
• Many told us they are susceptible to peer pressure and/or manipulation which has got them in trouble and in contact with the criminal justice system.
• The majority have not been offered any adjustments or support in the criminal justice system.
• Criminal justice system staff and the NHS staff in prisons lack qualifications and information about neurodiversity and neurodivergent people and therefore are not able to provide them the support they need.

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

The Drivers of Neurodivergent Service Users Into the Criminal Justice System

• Over half of the service users had experienced abuse in their early life (47% men, 76% women)
• One third of the service users had experience of care (men 30%, women 24%)
• 38% of men and 29% of women had struggled with alcohol or drug addiction
• 71% of men talked about being labelled ‘bad,’ ‘naughty’ or ‘thick’ at school and acted accordingly (47% women)

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

Most of the individuals User Voice interviewed for this project were from lower socio-economic backgrounds and therefore did not receive the support or resources that neurodivergent children from higher socio-economic backgrounds more often receive.

Most had felt different in their early years, often without understanding why. Many were not able to regulate their emotions and had problems communicating their opinions or feelings. Frustration about this led to anger and violence and was often misinterpreted by their parents, carers, friends, and teachers as being ‘bad’, ‘naughty’ or ‘thick’.

‘Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

Crisis Points: Entry Into the Criminal Justice System

Many service users told us that they have lived their entire lives ‘in crisis’ due to neglect, isolation and a lack of understanding or support from their families and the institutions. By listening to these service users’ life stories, it seems almost as if the education, healthcare, and social care institutions were looking the other way. These institutions seemed to wait for them to ‘do the inevitable’ and pass over into the criminal justice system, which the interviewees all did.

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

Many said they turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, which in the end, when things got out of hand, had led to them to commit crimes such as stealing, robberies and assaults. Women service users’ entry into the criminal justice system was often via domestic abuse and losing of children to social services, which then led to drug use and crime. Bereavement was also a trigger for many women, who felt they lost their support system and started to drink and take drugs to numb their feelings and emotions.

’Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

Of the 104 service users who were interviewed for this project, only 2 said police had made adjustments around their neurodiverse condition. That is 2% of the service users.

Service users told us that the police only reacted to their behaviour and never took the time to understand the causes of their behaviour. They felt that the police did not know enough about neurodiversity and the behavioural traits of neurodivergent service users. The police do not ask whether someone is neurodivergent. When someone tries to say that they are neurodivergent, the police either do not believe them or they do not care.

Of the 104 service users who were interviewed for this project, only 3 said the courts had made adjustments around their neurodiverse condition. That is 3% of the service users.

Service users told us that because of their criminal records, they feel they are perceived as not deserving of any support, and therefore their neurodiverse conditions are ignored in sentencing. Many felt that in the eyes of the system they are always just ‘naughty kids.’

Service users felt they were being criminalised for their neurodiverse conditions. Autistic meltdowns were interpreted by the police as someone being aggressive or out of control due to drug or alcohol consumption. There was no understanding from the police that flashing lights, loud sounds and being approached by multiple police officers can be overwhelming for someone who is neurodivergent.

‘Not Naughty, Stupid, or Bad’ the Voices of Neurodiverse Service Users in the Criminal Justice System

Here are the magic phrases which you need to know if you want to invoke your Miranda rights

1) “Am I free to leave?”

It’s worth asking this even if the answer is obvious. Even if the officer does not let you leave, by forcing them to admit that you are not free to leave, you are creating a record which your attorney can use to prove that you were in custody. Miranda rights only apply if the interrogation is custodial, meaning that police officers will frequently claim that their suspects were “not in custody” to get around their Miranda rights.

2) “I am invoking my right to remain silent.”

Simply staying silent will not invoke your right to remain silent. As absurd as this is, you must explicitly say that you are invoking your right to remain silent in order to invoke that right.

3) “I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

As stated above, you must be not only clear and unambiguous, but clear and legally unambiguous. Don’t get cute. Don’t get sassy. And on the flip side, don’t get intimidated and use verbal ticks to minimize your request. Say the line with those words exactly – say it clearly, and say it once, and then say nothing else.

Because even after you’ve done all this, the police can still try to get you to talk. They’re not supposed to interrogate you, but they’re allowed to make casual conversation, and if that conversation just happens to circle back around to the thing they wanted to question you about, well, that’s really your fault for talking after you said you wouldn’t, isn’t it? Can’t possibly fault the poor officers when you initiated – if you really wanted to have your rights respected, you wouldn’t have talked to them in the first place.

The police know this, and they will mercilessly exploit this loophole. So, once you’ve successfully invoked your Miranda rights, any and all conversation you have with police officers will put those rights back into jeopardy. 

Putting it all together:

Ask: “Am I free to leave?”

If they say no, say: “I am invoking my right to remain silent and I am invoking my right to an attorney.”

And then shut up and do not say a single thing to them for any reason whatsoever until you have actually spoken to an attorney. Yes, even if it takes hours. Yes, even if they start talking to you about something else.

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Further Reading