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Recent observations from Jonathan Hall QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, suggest that 鈥溾�� number of autistic people are referred to the UK government鈥檚 anti-radicalisation Prevent programme.
The comments come ahead of Halls鈥� upcoming lecture about whether the criminal justice system is the right avenue for dealing with autistic people on the counter-terrorism scheme. But rather than leading with an explanation for these high figures, on the terror watchdog鈥檚 observations have since suggested there is a link between autistic people and radicalisation.
These remarks and the coverage of the story are indeed staggering to me as a researcher of autism spectrum conditions 鈥� but not in the way the authors intended.
At present, there鈥檚 to suggest that autistic people are significantly more susceptible to radicalisation or terrorism. Yet most coverage of the issue fails to discuss the reasons behind autistic people being disproportionately reported to the scheme and instead focuses on limited aspects of the data.
Grossly oversimplified coverage like this risks serious damage to some of the most vulnerable in society. While it鈥檚 true that autistic people are than non-autistic people to be over-represented in the Prevent scheme, this statement belies a much more complex story.
Studies show that autistic people are no more likely than to hold sympathetic views for violent protest or terrorism.
In fact, there is some evidence that terror networks are actually to recruit people with any kind of mental health problem, perhaps due to societal stigma around mental illness and disability. The promotion of a link between autism and radicalisation is simply irresponsible.
鈥楤etter safe than sorry鈥� 鈥� but at whose expense?
There are a number of autistic features which, if observed out of context and without expertise, may appear alarming. Autism is characterised by intense interests, the drive to collect facts and figures about a topic. This behaviour usually occurs in a highly 鈥渃ircumscribed鈥� manner, meaning the pursuit and collection of facts is an enjoyable goal in itself, and may be completely unconnected to social relationships and ideological beliefs.
Studies also show that two-way understanding is difficult between autistic and non-autistic people, and that the verbal and non-verbal communication of autistic people is often . One in particular suggests that safeguarding officials (for example, in education and the NHS) often adopt a approach and flag up behaviours that don鈥檛 really warrant referrals to counter-terrorism units.
Worryingly, when it comes to generating national statistics, investigators often look purely at this biased sample pool, into which autistic people, and those with mental illnesses, are to have been unfairly placed.
To understand why this is bad science, imagine if I bought 100 bags of jelly babies and picked out all the purple ones. If I were to give someone who鈥檇 never had them before a bucket of these purple jelly babies, they鈥檇 be forgiven for thinking these sweets only come in blackcurrant flavour. But they鈥檙e sampling from a man-made pool, one subject to human biases (like my disinclination for purple jelly babies).
Those autistic people wrongly referred to Prevent might later be acquitted from the programme. Regardless of exoneration, though, people who experience false accusation are often alienated from their community, lose jobs, friends and partners, and suffer . Likewise, on a grand scale the damage is done 鈥� the numbers and the word are out.
Stigma is hurting autistic people
To think that the stigma caused by such statements can be offset with a little caveat 鈥� such as the one that appears at the end of 鈥� is naive because it doesn鈥檛 account for a crucial aspect of human psychology: our brains love a short-cut.
We live in a fast-paced world where we鈥檙e bombarded with information, so our brains use a lot of quick fixes, 鈥渞ules of thumb鈥�, so that we don鈥檛 have to think about everything so deeply. One of these is called the . When something has been brought to our attention, the memory of it stays close at hand, especially if it鈥檚 an emotive topic. Because of the availability of the memory, we then judge the phenomenon as much more common than it actually is.
This 鈥渜uick-fix鈥� can add to the chaos and uncertainty after catastrophic events. After the , for example, people became extremely reluctant to fly because of the availability of thoughts about plane hijacking, and insurance firms rushed to add clauses refusing to cover terrorism risk.
In this case, when we think about autism, articles pop right back into our minds because they鈥檙e 鈥渁vailable鈥� to our brains, and we overestimate the frequency of radicalisation in autism.
Stigma against autism is ingrained from a young age and news articles only . Non-autistic children view autistic peers as less friendly, and are . Though these explicit negative judgements taper with age, older children show implicit avoidance of autistic others. Adults, too, are to interact with autistic people.
Stigma harms autistic people. They internalise it and experience low self-worth and . It drives them to , a process associated with depression, anxiety and even suicide.
My ongoing research suggests that over and above its association with depression, internalised stigma is actually associated with mental rehearsal of suicide plans. To put this in context, a stark reality is that autistic people are, by one estimate, three times more likely to 鈥� and stigma is likely a contributing factor.
Terrorism is a real risk which concerns us all, but inflammatory, ill-informed headlines pose a silent, unjustified and very real danger to the autistic community. With best intentions, the 鈥渂etter safe than sorry鈥� approach of inexperienced professionals, and the subsequent non-critical appraisal and sensational reporting of data, pass a different kind of injury onto a community who can little afford it.
, Principle Academic in Psychology,
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