In The Politics of Autism, I discuss interactions between police and autistic people. Police officers need training to respond appropriately. When they do not, things get out of hand. In the case of Buckeye, Arizona, an officer harassed a young autistic man who was merely stimming.
As Jim Pietrangelo writes at Healthline, the Buckeye incident illustrates the need for police training.
Healthline discussed the subject of law enforcement and autism with Elizabeth Rossiaky, a board-certified behavior analyst with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD).
Rossiaky works one-on-one with children who have autism. She has personal experience observing interactions between law enforcement and those children
“Throughout the country, you’re going to see a spectrum of officers and how they handle those situations involving individuals with autism,” said Rossiaky. “What it really comes down to is education and training.”
“The officers [in some Chicago suburbs] are required to have bachelor degrees,” she added. “They do go through more mental illness training. They go through more de-escalation training.”
However, there’s little to no standardization in levels of education and mental health training for officers throughout the country.
“Some officers have [less education] and receive maybe an eight-hour course on mental health. And that’s about it,” said Rossiaky.
Instead, “they often get way more training on how to physically manage an individual,” said Rossiaky. “That’s where you see an officer approaching a child, not knowing how to handle [them] not responding, and then the child ending up on the ground.”
Like what happened to the Arizona teenager.
“It’s because that’s where their focus lies,” said Rossiaky.