Prof. Robyn Young1, Dr Neo Georgiou1, Mr Hamish Watt1, Dr Belinda Fuss1
1Flinders University, Bedford Park, Australia
Biography:
Professor Young has been able to translate her research into practice as a Clinical Psychologist and autism diagnostician. She has been invited to prepare more than 200 court reports and provide evidence about autism in the justice system. Professor Young has published over 100 journal articles. She has been a keynote speaker at numerous autism conferences worldwide. She is a board member of the Australian Advisory Board on Autism. Her expertise in the forensic arena and the interaction between autistic people in the criminal judicial system led to the book Crime and autism spectrum disorder: Myths and Mechanisms.
Researchers agree that most individuals with autism are law-abiding citizens who are more likely to be victims of crimes than commit crimes. However, they are still seven times more likely to interact with the criminal justice system than individuals without autism. Our study aims to identify autistic characteristics that contribute to this increased prevalence, specifically in cases where the autistic person has been coerced into criminal activity.
Autistic people are often thought to lack connections and engagement due to a lack of interest in developing friendships, rather than an inability to develop them. As such it is erroneously believed that autistic people lack social motivation. This is often not the case. The internet has provided an opportunity for autistic people to seek these friendships in what appears on the surface to be a more user-friendly environment (e.g., gaming, social media). However, this also provides access to predators. Through a systematic review we identify characteristics that increase vulnerability to coercion. Factors considered include the interplay between autistic characteristics (e.g., poor perception taking, obsessive interests, social isolation, social naivety) and other predisposing factors such as bullying, age, gender, intellect, and lack of support. This presentation will focus on the characteristics of autism that may make a person vulnerable to coercion and even radicalisation. This is of interest because a proportion of individuals who engage in hate crime and extremism are known to be autistic and understanding how neurodiversity shapes their experiences is essential to contextualising vulnerability (Salman & Al-Attar, 2019).