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outlander
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26 Nov 2014, 9:36 pm

Quite by accident I stumbled across this at the URL
Asperger's Syndrome and the Criminal Law

this allows one to download the PDF file bearing the title:
Asperger’s Syndrome and the Criminal Law:
The Special Case of Child Pornography


For some reason the PDF file itself seems to be denoted by the PDF File Name:
Aspergers Syndrome and the Criminal Law v26.PDF:

I am a little confused about the v26 part and have bolded and underlined it above. I assume it means volume 26 and I am wondering how many volumes there are and do they all deal with Asperger's syndrome, and are there other legal aspects and their skewed impact on Aspies besides child pornography law.

All of the above being said, a brief sampling of the 33 pages seem to indicate that this is a very well written document. with much broader value than just child pornography laws. It seems to have much of value with respect to problems Aspies have in encounters with the legal system and injustices and inappropriate handling by the legal system. It is my impression that it is written by someone with a very sound understanding of Asperger's Syndrome and also the Law and legal system..

I would think it would be a good starting point on getting a defense lawyer for an aspie up to speed.

I would like to see what others have to say in evaluating this document as well as find out if there other relevant volumes when it comes to Aspies and the Law.

Please peruse the document and then comment. It appears to be very valuable. Maybe I have only just stumbled on this and some of you know a lot more about it. But it is new to me and impresses me as being potentially very valuable.

Outlander.


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one-A-N
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26 Nov 2014, 9:57 pm

Version 26?

Anyway, thanks for the link. I'll read it, as I am interested in criminal justice as well as being on the spectrum.



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27 Nov 2014, 5:57 am

where is the connection between aspergers and kiddie porn.teenage female runaways tend to be the victim of that type of thing. I don't know about autism and human trafficking


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outlander
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27 Nov 2014, 7:12 am

vermontsavant wrote:
where is the connection between aspergers and kiddie porn....
In the article cited, the link is the justice system run amok seeing criminal intent and activity where there is none because they do not understand asperger's syndrome. The judges and police read into an aspie's behavior a criminal intent that is simply not there. The legal system reacts to the behaviour of an aspie with suspicion of criminal intent and then proceeds to make a case against an aspie for what was done innocently. It is all about how an aspie can be misclassified and then "railroaded" by the "justice" system.


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Sweetleaf
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27 Nov 2014, 7:58 am

Read some of it, not sure I like the implication that having AS would make it impossible to know if you are viewing 'kiddie' porn or not. I mean I could see bad situations where naive person with AS goes to look at porn unknowingly/accidently views something like that without being fully aware or being mislead...and boom gets hit with criminal charges and then has no real way of defending them-self against accusations of seeking it out.

However I have AS, and am quite confident I would not end up in a situation where I'd accidently see something like that...but yeah it wold make most sense for such things to be dealt with on a case by case basis.


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outlander
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27 Nov 2014, 9:53 am

Sweetleaf

I believe that you have correctly perceived the intent of the article to explore and expound the problem of how law enforcement may mis-perceive the actions of Aspies. The values I see in the article are:
-- to assist aspies in understanding the reactions of law enforcement personnel
-- to assist law enforcement personnel in understanding how to correctly understand the intent of Aspies
-- to assist lawyers in understanding Asperger's and the law in making a defense
-- to assist family members to understand and deal with and avoid interactions between Aspies and the legal system.

I believe much of the information in the article is far more broadly applicable than just the special case of Kiddie Porn. Since i am an academic (retired college professor) I found the format and style in which it was written familiar and understandable. I find the "v26", (volume 26 ???), suggestive that there may be other such articles outside of the "Kiddie Porn" issue, that might be more generally pertinent to the general issue of the legal system vs. Aspies, and if such exists I would be grateful to anyone who can direct me to it. The greatest value I see in the article is that it presents a case for how the legal system can prevent injustice to aspies by factoring asperger's into the context of a case and thereby prevent an injustice and achieve appropriate goals.

I am aware that some aspies have gone to carrying a card explaining asperger's syndrome which they give to police officers in order to diffuse potential misunderstandings. I am aware of a similar confrontation between a deaf friend of mine and the police. All too many officers have been taught to make inferences from someone's demeanor and body language, that are only appropriate for an average neuroypical person and do not take into consideration disabilities or especially less visible differences such as Asperger's Syndrome.

I believe the kiddie porn "special case" nature of the article is of lesser value and far less relevant than the more general concern. I would like to find more about the general case of the legal system vs Aspies if this or other authors have addressed the topic. The case law and court decisions are I think illuminating and valuable. From what I read in the article and the expertise with which the author discussed the issues, I believe that the author may have very good credentials which might make his general statements useful to present in court should the need arise. It might be quite useful if for instance the jury was instructed in an understanding of Asperger's syndrome prior to the trial proceeding. It might also be of great value during the jury selection process and "voir dire".[1] Indeed it may even go to the root of what is meant by "a jury of one's peers".

------------------------
[1]
From Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/voir%20dire?s=t
voir dire
noun, Law.
1.
an oath administered to a proposed witness or juror by which he or she is sworn to speak the truth in an examination to ascertain his or her competence.
2.
the examination itself.


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vermontsavant
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28 Nov 2014, 1:47 am

outlander wrote:
vermontsavant wrote:
where is the connection between aspergers and kiddie porn....
In the article cited, the link is the justice system run amok seeing criminal intent and activity where there is none because they do not understand asperger's syndrome. The judges and police read into an aspie's behavior a criminal intent that is simply not there. The legal system reacts to the behaviour of an aspie with suspicion of criminal intent and then proceeds to make a case against an aspie for what was done innocently. It is all about how an aspie can be misclassified and then "railroaded" by the "justice" system.
I don't know,i have never stumbled on child porn in my life.i rarely look at legit over 21 porn but I have a few times looked at it but never have seen any sub links for child porn

I think you have to look pretty hard to find such things because those sights are illegal and the webmasters firewalls would be emense because of police activity.i would imagine one would have to look pretty hard to find that sort of thing.you could be right I rarely look at porn so maybe if I surfed those types of sites freakquently I might have seen illegal porn.

if someone finds child porn,snuff films there likely looking for it


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outlander
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28 Nov 2014, 7:02 am

The article is long, 81pages, but farther down the article lays out the scenario. Basically an adolescent aspie going through puberty seeks knowledge about sex (as virtually all teens do) and develops an intense focus on it. In the process, not realizing the social impropriety of pornography and that pornography depicts a fantasy, false, representation of sex, digs deeper and deeper and encounters kiddie porn and does not grasp the legal implications. The author stresses the necessity for parents of pubescent teen aspies, to provide instruction and explanation about what is and is not appropriate and legal to avoid such problems. The author emphasizes that knowing the rules about social-sexual behavior is the antidote.

But again, I say that the real value of the article is about interaction of Aspies and the legal system, and not the special case about sex and pornography and kiddie porn. The author points out that we Aspies are a very law abiding lot, and the problem is that we do not pick up on rules that we are not told about in the way that neurotypicals do. Aspies need to be instructed about law, since we do not pick it up by some sort of social osmosis the way neurotypicals do.

Please consider the religious concept of law versus the societal concept. In religions, the congregants are taught the law, which is written in plain language.(e.g. 10 commandments), but in our societies, legislators produce volume after volume of law every year, all written in an obfuscating legalese, and somehow we are supposed to know about it. (A truely stupid system if one would like to have a law abiding system). Arguably the last piece of law written in the U.S. was the constitution, and politicians and judges are constantly saying that it means something different than what the words say!

Ok, I will step off my soap box now.


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PlainsAspie
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28 Nov 2014, 10:48 am

Requiring proof of willfulness would be it way too easy for criminals to get off scot free.



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28 Nov 2014, 1:18 pm

I've known kiddie porn was against the law since I was a kid because I had heard about people being busted for looking at kiddie porn ad downloading it. So I never dared to look at it, even if I was curious to see what it was. I just assumed it was of naked children because I was told that was what porn was. but yet it was okay to see it in family albums but if I put a naked baby picture of myself online, I can get busted for kiddie porn. That was my literal thinking of kiddie porn so therefore I never did the crime so I still an't see how an aspie would do it unless they were ignorant about the law about kiddie porn because no one ever told them it was illegal nor have they ever heard about someone being busted for it.

I can remember apsies freaking out on AFF for accidentally looking at kiddie porn because some troll posted a link to that site and members there didn't know what the link was until they clicked it so they were worried about FBI showing up for looking at kiddie porn. I think the link was removed before I saw it so no other member would click it. I honestly see this mistake can happen to anyone. If someone posts it claiming for it to be something else, how are you going to know? If that happened to me, I would get out of it ASAP right when I see it.

Even with having emotional immaturity of a child, I still don't see why someone would want to do the crime after being aware it's illegal to view it.

The only exceptions I know are if you are a police officer and you got a report about finding kiddie porn so you take the computer and look at it for evidence, you are a teacher or some other professional so you are forced to look at them so you know what to look for in abuse, and if you got some virus and it downloaded kiddie porn on your PC or you were tricked to clicking a link to a site or you were fixing a computer and you found kiddie porn on it. I wouldn't view these people as pedophiles or say they did a crime.

I didn't really know what kiddie porn was until I was an adult and it was very disturbing what someone said about it because she has had to see it before for her job to know what to look for in abuse because it was part of her job to report it. But I had wondered for years why it was illegal and why is it harmful for a minor and how is looking at naked pictures of kids harmful? How is looking at a naked baby photo of myself by someone going to harm me? But I never asked because I was too afraid of what people would think and get the wrong idea. I had seen a few aspies ask the same and I always thought it was bravery but perhaps they didn't realize how they may come off as. someone finally asked it on AFF and that was when another aspie explained it because she has had to view it before for work and she didn't like seeing them either and it was very hard for her to see them.


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Buzz201
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28 Nov 2014, 4:11 pm

outlander wrote:
I am aware that some aspies have gone to carrying a card explaining asperger's syndrome which they give to police officers in order to diffuse potential misunderstandings. I am aware of a similar confrontation between a deaf friend of mine and the police. All too many officers have been taught to make inferences from someone's demeanor and body language, that are only appropriate for an average neuroypical person and do not take into consideration disabilities or especially less visible differences such as Asperger's Syndrome.


In some areas of the UK, it's a formal initiative between the Police and the National Autism Society.

I've seen posters for the cards, but the wording of them seems inappropriate to me, it's something like "IF YOU HAVE AN AUTISTIC SPECTRUM DISORDER THEN YOU MUST CARY A CARD", the wording remains the same, but they've toned down the emphasis on the version on their website...



outlander
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28 Nov 2014, 6:33 pm

League_Girl wrote:
...... Even with having emotional immaturity of a child, I still don't see why someone would want to do the crime after being aware it's illegal to view it. .......

In this statement you are quite close to the author's point with one very significant difference.
The case the author is getting at is an Aspie who:
A .-- does not know it is a crime because no one ever told him/her it was wrong;
B. -- has little or no knowledge about sex, being essentially naive about such things;
C. -- thinks he/she is looking at valid information.
The significant difference between what the author is getting at and your statement is that the author is talking about knowledge where as you phrase it as "having the emotional immaturity of a child". Aspies are notoriously weak on emotional empathy, to the point of some being bereft about emotion. The sort of Aspie that the author is speaking of is one that craves knowledge about the topic of sex, and really is not emotionally in tune with the persons in the images he/she is looking at. That would constitute a very large fraction of those on the Asperger's spectrum. The author points out that special advice on the matter of what is acceptable in social-sexual matters can be critically important for the parents to convey to their Aspie son or daughter, and in light of how many parents are deficient in conveying that to their neurotypical children, we have the makings of a "perfect storm" of lacking information.


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noprudden
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15 Mar 2015, 8:58 am

I highly recommend the book "Asperger's Syndome, Sexuality and the Law" for a full discussion of this critical issue. google on amazon, you will see the reviews discuss exactly what is in the book and why it is so important.

Please let me know if this is of help.