Autistic individuals interact with the justice system at high rates as each victims and offenders. With a grant from the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) in late 2019, Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute explored ways to enhance interactions between autistic individuals and the justice system. The funding and collaboration led to the recently published policy temporary, “Autism and the Criminal Justice System: Policy Opportunities and Challenges,” with wide reaching recommendations and considerations for the broader justice system.
Recommendations from the policy temporary include provisions of trauma-informed supports for autistic victims and a necessity for nations to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Individuals with Disabilities. The temporary also includes recommendations which might be specific to different facets of the justice system – community services, law enforcement, confinement and re-entry – which might be focused on novel programing like diversionary efforts to maintain autistic people out of jail, alternatives to policing and the usage of peer supports.
The policy recommendations are intended to handle all individuals who’re impacted by the overrepresentation of autistic individuals within the justice system. This includes autistic individuals – whether a victim or witness – and their members of the family and caregivers. Justice system professionals who interact with autistic individuals, community service providers and other involved professionals, also need guidance, support and latest practices to effectively support autistic individuals who interact with the justice system. These recommendations offer strategies for the sphere and give attention to generating and implementing equity-informed solutions.
This international policy temporary is a crucial first step to making sure equitable access to justice for autistic individuals. Future research is required at each stage of the criminal justice system that identifies evidence-based practices and focuses on solutions.”
Lindsay Shea, DrPH, Leader of the Policy and Analytics Center within the Autism Institute
Anchored by a revised version of the Sequential Intercept Model (SIM), which organizes each stage of the justice system as specific intercepts, the policy temporary leverages the predictable pathways that offenders and victims follow throughout the justice system. This enables for policies that address a posh and disconnected system and guides the direction of future research.
The collaboration between the International Society for Autism Research and the Policy and Analytics Center led to a global team of stakeholders from 10 countries across multiple continents convening repeatedly over the course of a 12 months to supply policy recommendations at each intercept and throughout all the justice system. The team of stakeholders was comprised of members of the autism community, including autistic self-advocates and members of the family, together with researchers, policymakers and justice system professionals.
Two workgroups also focused on revising the Sequential Intercept Model and developing a world survey to measure and characterize interactions between autistic individuals and the justice system across all stages.
Autistic self-advocates and justice system professionals reviewed the text of the recommendations and policy briefs for accessibility and feedback.
“We hope this temporary will help spark a discourse specializing in stopping root causes for offending and levying justice grounded in supporting and rehabilitating quite than punishing,” said Shea.
Shea added that policy changes are needed globally, in addition to reimagining the role of justice.
The Policy and Analytics Center and the stakeholders of the Global Autism and Criminal Justice Consortium that helped produce this temporary will proceed to steer the charge on this front.