We’ve come a long way in conversations about autism and violence.  It used to be normal for people to speculate that autistic people are more likely to commit violent crimes than neurotypicals, and to an extent people still do that.  But now we at least have access to some excellent studies, like this one by Heeramun et al. (2017) with its huge population sample, showing that autistic people are no more likely to commit violent crimes than neurotypicals, at least when co-occurring conditions are controlled for.  We also have access to an emerging set of studies showing that autistic people are more likely to become victims of violence than neurotypicals (Brown-Lavoie et al., 2014; Ohlsson Gotby et al., 2018; Weiss & Fardella, 2018).  Furthermore, any media claims that autism might have been involved in some high-profile crime are likely to be immediately met by a flurry of articles reminding us that autistic people are no more likely to commit violent crimes than neurotypicals.

But I’m not satisfied.  Why not?

Well, consider this.  The studies that denied a link between autism and perpetration of violent crime might instead have found that autistic people are indeed more likely to perpetrate violent crimes.  If they found that pattern, what would they say?  Well, I think they’d have said that autistic people are more violent than neurotypicals.  I think they’d have blamed autistic people’s autism symptoms for their criminal offending.[1]

Do you see the problem here?  No?

Here’s a simple strategy for telling when a statement about people with disabilities is offensive: swap out the people with disabilities and put another group in their place.  Consider the following statement: “If the studies found that black people were more likely to perpetrate violent crimes, I think they’d have said that black people are more violent than whites.  I think they’d have blamed black people’s innate racial characteristics for their criminal offending.”

Obviously, this second statement is outrageous.  Thus, now you see the problem with the statement about autistic people.  It’s excellent that authors like Heeramun et al. have begun controlling for co-occuring conditions, but we’re still ignoring the role of psychosocial risks and stress.

Autistic people have unpleasant lives.  Many of us are isolated.  Many of us are unemployed, or severely underemployed.  Many of us barely eke out a living on the margins of society.  We’re also less likely to live independently.  And, as mentioned earlier, we are more likely to have experiences of victimization.[2]

Thus, all things considered, autistic people are remarkably unlikely to commit violent crimes.  We need to look to autism symptoms not as a cause of violence, but as protection against the commission of violent crimes.  Perhaps it is our love of order and rules that keeps us from harming others?

 

What do you think?  Please comment below!

Footnotes

[1] Certainly those who believe in an autism-crime association seem to have no hesitations about attributing the relationship to autism symptoms.  Consider the following statement from Professor Michael Fitzgerald (2010, p. 48): “The mental problem in Criminal Autistic Psychopathy is low empathising.  Persons with Criminal Autistic Psychopathy are not capable of reciprocity indeed are interested in precisely the opposite that is in control domination and degradation [sic]…  The neural wiring for empathy is either absent or very malfunctioning…”

[2] There’s even a theory that basically says humans have evolved in such a way that young, unmarried, unemployed men are the most violent people around, and certainly the evidence does show elevated violence from that population (Wilson & Daly, 1985).  The relevance to autism is clear: “young, unmarried, unemployed male” sounds rather like a stereotype of “autistic.”

References

Brown-Lavoie, S. M., Viecili, M. A., & Weiss, J. A. (2014). Sexual knowledge and victimization in adults with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(9), 2185–2196. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2093-y

Fitzgerald, M. (2010). Young, Violent, and Dangerous to Know. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Heeramun, R., Magnusson, C., Gumpert, C. H., Granath, S., Lundberg, M., Dalman, C., & Rai, D. (2017). Autism and convictions for violent crimes: Population-based cohort study in Sweden. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 56(6), 491–497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2017.03.011

Ohlsson Gotby, V., Lichtenstein, P., Långström, N., & Pettersson, E. (2018). Childhood neurodevelopmental disorders and risk of coercive sexual victimization in childhood and adolescence – a population-based prospective twin study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12884

Weiss, J. A., & Fardella, M. A. (2018). Victimization and perpetration experiences of adults with autism. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9: 203. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00203

Wilson, M., & Daly, M. (1985). Competitiveness, risk taking, and violence: The young male syndrome. Ethology and Sociobiology, 6(1), 59-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(85)90041-X