‘Do You Have Any Difficulties That I May Not Be Aware of?’ A Study of Autism Awareness and Understanding in the UK Police Service

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Chown, N. (2010). ‘Do You Have Any Difficulties That I May Not Be Aware of?’ A Study of Autism Awareness and Understanding in the UK Police Service. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 12(2), 256-273. https://doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2010.12.2.174

Publication date: 26 Mar 2010 Added to AutiHub: 14 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
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Authors

Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
  1. Nicholas (Nick) Chown *

Abstract

The autism ‘triad of impairments' will often disadvantage those with autism when they come into contact with the Criminal Justice System (CJS) when compared with people without autism. Existing research suggests that people with developmental disabilities such as autism are between 4 and 10 times more likely to become victims of crime than those without such disabilities and may be 10 or more times as likely to be victims of sexual assault and robbery. Anecdotal evidence suggests that people with autism are the subject of discrimination in the CJS due to a general lack of awareness and understanding of autism and its implications in that environment. This study seeks to assess the current understanding of autism awareness and understanding in the UK police service through the means of a questionnaire, and by comparing the results with an earlier study undertaken by researchers in the USA. The long-term aim is to improve responses by CJS personnel to those affected by autism. Overall, as a broad generalisation, individual self-assessments of competency indicated that, currently, police officers are probably unable to deal appropriately with persons with autism. However, in many cases, self-assessments may exaggerate competence. The US study also found that police officers tended to perceive themselves as competent when they may not have been. Not one respondent in this study had received training from the police service fitting him/her to interact effectively with persons on the autism spectrum.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 20 Sep 2026 01:01.

Cited references
49
With a DOI
28
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
18
0 / 49 (0.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
11 / 49 (22.4%)
References with detected author names
41 / 49 (83.7%)
Without detected author names
8
Without a structured title
9
Without a stable identifier
16
References with raw author names still to review
6
References with external metadata lookup issues
1
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
84
From DOI or external metadata
84
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
6
9 / 84 (10.7%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 75 / 84 (89.3%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
0 / 84 (0.0%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 0 / 9 (0.0%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 0 / 80 (0.0%).
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