Autistic adults ‘no more vulnerable to criminal exploitation’, research suggests

Researchers have tested the idea that autistic adults are more vulnerable to criminal exploitation.

Academics at Flinders University in Australia carried out a study involved 197 participants —102 autistic adults and 95 non-autistic adults – who were immersed as role players in scenarios that, as they unfolded, increasingly suggested criminal intent on the part of those with whom they were interacting.

They were then asked how they would react at various points as the scenarios unfolded to assess their capacity to recognise and respond to suspicious actions from others, thereby assessing their vulnerability to be unwittingly drawn into criminal activity.

Researchers found that, overall, both autistic and non-autistic adults responded in similar ways to suspicious behaviour across various scenarios. Importantly, autistic adults did not show lower rates of suspicion or adaptive responses when compared to their non-autistic counterparts as the scenarios unfolded. Nor did they take longer to recognise the potentially problematic nature of the interaction.

“It is not uncommon for defence lawyers, often supported by testimony from ‘expert’ witnesses, to argue that autistic adults have difficulty interpreting the intentions or reading the minds of others, rendering them vulnerable to being enticed into criminal activity,” says Professor Neil Brewer, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Psychology in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work.

“Such arguments reflect the widely-held perspective that difficulties reading others’ intentions, emotions and motivations are fundamental features of autism.

“However, this perspective may not hold up under scrutiny and we found that, in general, autistic adults are no more vulnerable to becoming ensnared in criminal acts than non-autistic adults.

“Moreover, the mindreading difficulties often considered inherently linked to autism are by no means ubiquitous in autistic adults.”

Building on previous research, the study found that verbal intelligence and Theory of Mind (ToM) – a term used to describe the ability to take the perspective or read the mind of others – predicted someone’s ability to recognise and respond to suspicious activity.

“Our findings indicate that the ability to understand others’ perspectives and intentions – and not the presence of an autism diagnosis – was a critical factor influencing their vulnerability to crime,” he says.
In other words, while autistic individuals who had difficulty discerning others’ intentions were vulnerable, the same was true of their non-autistic peers.

It is important to note, however, that there was a relatively small proportion of autistic individuals whose performance on the mindreading measure was below that of any of the non-autistic sample, a finding consistently replicated by the Flinders research team who developed the measure.

This indicates that there will be some autistic individuals who will likely be particularly vulnerable because of mindreading difficulties – but such difficulties cannot be assumed.

“Thus, rather than defence lawyers and clinicians assuming, and arguing, that a diagnosis of autism automatically signals a particular vulnerability to being lured into crime, it is important to formally assess and demonstrate that a criminal suspect or defendant has significant mindreading difficulties that likely have rendered them vulnerable,” he adds.