should aspies have to go to prison?

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You shouldn't be sent to prison just because you have Aspergers but if you commit a crime then you should be dealt with according to that crime.

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Actually, we might like it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D04wb7P_v-4[/youtube]

This guy seems to think he would

I've wondered about the alternatives to prison before.

I vaguely remember a documentary about some country in Europe that is known for having an extremely low crime rate and they don't have prisons as we know them. I remember it being almost like a group home. The "prisoners" work and do rehabilitation and have much more freedom. Apparently, their system is pretty successful despite being pretty lax.

I wish I could remember what it was I watched and more details.

You may not like it, but that is an answer. I am not going to say that autistics should go to prison when I do not believe anyone should go to prison.

Also,

http://www.forbes.com/2006/04/15/prison ... alter.html
http://www.famm.org/repository/files/al ... Dfinal.pdf
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-a ... nment.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/alterna ... arceration

I noticed people brought up capital punishment as justification for imprisonment of autistics earlier in this thread. I don't think capital punishment should be an option, either.

Have you ever actually met any hardcore criminals?

What does this have to do with anything? I am not saying that violent criminals should be allowed to run free to do as they wish.

I am saying that prison, as an institution, is deeply flawed and does far more harm than good. Given high recidivism rates, it's pretty much useless at rehabilitation.

Then where do you want them to go? You have to understand how those guys think and how they can manipulate and weasel their way out of things. Not escape from a secure facility (many can and do though, my BIL did a few times) but play the counselors and teachers and all the people who are there to rehabilitate them.

Something you don't understand is that a whole lot of them don't want to be rehabilitated. They want to do their time, get out and go back to living their life just like they want to. Sure, they will lie and tell you they want to be legit. They can lay it on thicker than the Max Factor on Tammy Faye Bakers face, and they can be pretty convincing too, even to people who work with criminals every day. But most of the time, they are just running s**t on them to look good to the parole board. They will jump through hoops, learn a trade, get a GED, get saved, marry their baby mama, do anything they need to so they can go on and make paper. There is no way to tell if they are for real rehabilitated or not. None in this world except turn them loose and see what happens. So basically, all that is just a waste of money on them because they aren't interested.

Sure prison is flawed, but it's pretty much the best we have right now. It's designed to hold those types of guys, not down on their luck guys who turned to a life of crime because their mother didn't hug them enough. You send the real hardhitters to one of those places and you might as well be sending him on a vacation.

I am positive I posted four links that discuss alternatives to prison in the first post of mine you replied to.



I am amazed that you know what I do and do not understand based upon my disagreement with the prison system. If you can tell me what I really think and believe, you don't even need to have a discussion with me because you can just play out what you think I know and do not know.

I am perfectly aware of such people.

My legal (not biological) father was diagnosed as a psychopath and given a dishonorable discharge from the military. As a parent and my mother spouse he was extremely abusive and violent. He has also committed rape, although the woman he raped did not take him to court. He will never change, and that is why I spend absolutely no time around him.



So because it's the best we have right now criticism shouldn't happen? I don't see what the purpose of your objection is if you agree it's flawed? Or do you want to try to read my mind and tell me again what I do or do not understand?

I have never been to prison but I know some people who have been. Prisons now have come a long way and they are really trying to implement programs to keep people from having to come back. They are seeing fewer repeat offenders and the violence in many major prison systems is starting to change. Even Rikers Island which was notorious for extreme prison violence has seen a huge huge decline, correct me if I am wrong but it may be as high as a 90% decline in the violence inside the prison.

And they do make great efforts in classification, that is where they choose where you will be housed, to put you in the safest unit you can be in. And if they find that someone is not safe, they will move them. The units for the mentally challenged or impaired are always among the absolute safest and most monitored. I don't know about every prison system in the US but I did get interested in that recently and watched a ton of documentaries on the subject. In fact, some of the prisoners interviewed said that they keep violating parole to come back because that is where they feel safest and where they are cared for. Some of them are terrified to try to make a life for themselves in regular society. But even within the prison system they have different programs to try to rehab prisoners so that they can live a successful life and don't have to keep coming back.

And there are those core people who either cannot change or really don't want to but there are also plenty of people who do and they manage to do very well and some even come back and work as mentors and counselors.

But as far as people who cannot tell right from wrong, like one poster said, they are extremely dangerous because they might not have a sense of conscience. I think that people like that have to be handled with extreme care and attention so that they are neither a danger to themselves or to the rest of society.

Jail is different. That is much harder because it is not as programmed. Jail, I think would be a much scarier place for an Aspie than prison.

Last edited by skibum on 30 Jul 2013, 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The things I think are flawed have nothing to do with rehabilitation in there. They have nothing to do with violence either. They don't want to be rehabilitated and they can handle the violence or they will have to learn to. My objections are to the hardships it puts on families of the convict. Their family didn't commit the crime, but they get punished just as much as the dude inside.

We have "halfway houses" here in the USA kinda like that usually for folks who have done some time but can be transitioned out because of good behavior. Most european countries have a lower crime rates than the USA. That particular european country's lax system is probably an effect of that, and not a cause.

Back to the question.

I dont think aspies should be punished less severely than nts (its not like you can make the argument made by the movement to get mentally ret*d people off deathrow which is that ret*d people dont grasp the difference between right and wrong- or have less self control). Aspergers does not impair you that way.

But once convicted should aspies be put in different programs than other inmates- maybe- depends on the aspie-depends on the crime- and a zillion other factors. But as a rule I dont see a reason to treat aspies fundementally differently from other criminals.

Down here they send you to a halfway house when you get parole. Sometimes if you have family that will take you they let you go with them, but lots of times they insist you stay at the halfway house. When you get out without parole, as in you have done all your time, you can still go to one if you can get in, but they are crowded and there's waiting lists that are really long. It's almost impossible down here to get somebody into one.

Well, personally, I think no one should go to prison. Prison should be eliminated, and replaced with psychiatric treatment aimed at reducing the risk the person poses to the public.

But since I doubt anyone will go for that model, I'd say it really depends on the person and the crime. A few people at the lower-functioning end of AS, as well as many lower-functioning autistic people, are probably not capable enough to be held responsible or to conduct an effective defense. Such people should not be held criminally responsible.

In addition, higher-functioning individuals might, in specific situations, not be aware that what they're doing is a crime. For example, I heard of a young man with AS who was given permission by a train operator to drive his train (which he did competently) and then arrested for driving a train without a license. In his case, it seems reasonable to think that, given his AS, he didn't realize that the train operator didn't have the authority to waive the requirement for a license.

Furthermore, AS may in some cases cause the person to be unable to control behavior despite understanding the laws against it. I'm thinking particularly of actions done while overloaded - for example, if they lashed out due to sensory overload, they should not be charged with assault because they weren't in control of their actions.

But there are other situations in which AS does not interfere with knowing what you did was wrong or with controlling your actions. For example, one child with a dual diagnosis of AS and psychopathy was reported in the literature as claiming he had engaged in a premeditated murder of another child. In that case, the conclusion was that the kid had lied, but if he'd been telling the truth, he'd have been just as responsible for his actions as a non-autistic psychopathic kid of the same age. (Whether psychopathy should affect criminal responsibility has been a subject of debate, but most reviewers have concluded yes. Although psychopaths don't understand right and wrong, they do understand laws and punishment. But that's a separate issue.)

Not everybody who commits crime is in need of psychiatric treatment.

True ... the only thing that some of them may need is to be euthanized out of our misery.