Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Criminal Justice System.
Young adults with autism are charged and reoffend at the same low rate as their typical peers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Yue and team tracked 640 young adults with autism for five years. All had left high school in the same U.S. state.
They counted arrests, charges, and returns to jail. They also checked if the person had an intellectual disability.
What they found
Only 3 out of every 100 young adults with ASD were charged with a crime. That rate matches typical peers.
Most charges were minor theft or disorderly conduct. Only one person was arrested again within two years.
How this fits with other research
Deserno et al. (2017) showed that bright adults with autism still struggle with daily skills. Those struggles do not seem to lead to more crime.
Pathak et al. (2019) found bigger IQ-adaptive gaps in older youth. Yue’s work shows these gaps also do not push crime rates up.
Schaaf et al. (2015) warned that DSM-5 drops some high-functioning cases. The low crime rate here hints that lost diagnoses are not a hidden high-risk group.
Why it matters
You can reassure families: adulthood crime risk for clients with ASD is low. Focus teaching on life skills, not fear of jail. Keep safety plans in place, but skip scare stories.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study describes charges, outcomes, and recidivism in both the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems (CJS) for young adults aged 17 to 23 years with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 606). Results are compared to individuals with ID (n = 1271) and a population control group (n = 2973). About 3% of individuals with ASD were charged with at least one offense by the time they reached young adulthood. Few differences were found in CJS involvement across groups. Young adults with ASD were not over represented in the CJS in general, and were less likely to be involved in the adult justice system than their peers. They received similar charges and outcomes and were as likely to reoffend as their peers.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2021 · doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2010.09.006