AUTISM ADVOCACY
Could My Child With
Autism Be Arrested?
What Parents Need to Know
By Carol S. WEINMAN, Esq., CAS
What better time to initiate a conversation about encounters with the criminal justice
system than during Autism Awareness Month? As parents, we are all-too-familiar with
the child who is bullied or victimized. But parents are surprised to learn that their
children are at an increased risk of being detained in the back of a police wagon or
seated in a courtroom at the defendant’s table.
S
o, why are we seeing this rise in criminal
offenders with autism? For one, what may
appear to be an increase may simply be at-
tributed to an improvement in identifying
them. Secondly, police officers do not rec-
ognize the tell-tale signs of autism and in-
nocently mistake characteristic behaviors
as suspicious activity. And lastly, these so-called of-
fenders do not understand that what they are doing
may be wrong, let alone criminal.
Mom: “How Did This Happen?”
As an attorney defending the rights of those with au-
tism, “How did this happen?” is the question I hear
most often in my initial meetings with parents fac-
ing their children’s arrest. These parents never en-
Autism Parenting Magazine | Issue 87 |
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