Is autism misunderstood by some members of the Police?
Written on 7th Mar 2014 by Sylvia Lowery
Faruk Ali’s has autism and his family claim that he was assaulted by a Police officer outside his home in Luton last month. A hundred and fifty people attended a meeting last night and there were angry scenes at the meeting. The Police and local council were in attendance. It is difficult to know what happened to Faruk Ali without knowing all the facts but individuals with autism do sometimes get into trouble with the Police.
The Assistant Chief Constable Nigel Trippett said, “From my perspective it was an opportunity to try to reassure the public in what we’re doing to address that and to recognise that we’re taking their complaints and their views seriously,”
It is good to see the Police taking this incident seriously but the real question is why did it happen and how can it be prevented from happening again. Here are 10 short points that may give Police officers a better understanding.
1. Autism is a hidden disability – this Police Officer may not have recognised that Mr Ali had autism.
2. Individuals with autism can react to people invading their physical space. Even gentle physical contact can cause an individual with autism to feel threatened and afraid.
3. Individuals with autism do not fit with stereotypes of suspicious or unlawful behaviour.
4. Poor eye contact is often interpreted as guilt. Individuals with autism struggle to give eye contact particularly when they are dealing with strangers.
5. Hating a change in the routine. Mr Ali’s family said he always helped to carry the bins to the lorry. If the Police officer tried to break this routine this may have cause a great deal of anxiety which may have led to the Police Officer restraining him.
6. Unusual behaviours such as shouting or roaring may be wrongly interpreted as drunkenness or threatening behaviour.
7. Difficulty in using or understanding language can lead to an admission of guilt when the person is innocent or can cause a person with autism to follow an instruction wrongly. Yesterday I asked Alex to move the bin so his dad could get the car in the path when he came home. The problem was I had only said move the bin which he did, but the bin and all the recycling were still in the path. This kind of response could be misinterpreted by a Police Officer as disrespect.
What can be done to bring about change and make all Police Officers gain a better understanding of autism?
It is important to provide training in autism for all Police officers. This should be provided by those who have autism themselves. There is so much to be done across the criminal justice system
You can read more about this here, here and here.
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you should get in touch with the criminal justice, head office police station and even local court and offer them your autism awareness training. I think it would help police officers understand autism better. Also I think it would be a good idea for people on the spectrum to carry with them something that explains autism and how difficult processing questions are in a unfamiliar situation.
Speaking as an ex prison officer, I now wonder how many of our unknown autistic prisoners are too facing these misunderstandings. The consequences are restraint, punishment and potential added days to the sentence. Very worrying.
It is very sad and worrying. It’s not the prisoner officer’s fault because they just haven’t had enough training to understand autism.
Here the officers must now have training in dealing with Autistics to stop the high rate of killing them. Since this training (and being known to all area officers as an Autistic Person) the abuse such as beating, dislocating and breaking bones, and tazing into cardiac arrest has become worse. I don’t know who trains them but they are being taught we will never be heard and will never be credible. Even an attorney can’t get the recordings presumably turned off or erased when the intent to harm is the reason for interaction. I don’t think training alone is the answer. Somethings are still very wrong and worsening with no recourse.