Tell me when you get any ideas. My experience is that there's a huge cavern between those interested in the health system and those interested in the justice system. Both systems are unwieldy and only provide for the centre of a normative curve. It's tough trying to solve wicked problems...

Dear Flip, this is a question, which really turns me on. You may know the situation in Germany is like this, that all judges are independent in their decision. Many provinces (Bundesländer) have a curriculum for the judges, where they must do a certain time taking care of psychiatric cases in the hospitals. If you get them nicely educated and trained in this time (from the doctor´s perspective) - then they got an idea how to move in this system and how to ask whom for counselling or testimony and how to evaluate this. But when not, then grace be with you.

Having worked in several German provinces, it appears to me, that the sitaution in Bavaria is worst. The recently in the press well highlighted case Mollert was and is especially possible in Bavaria. Psychiatric patients can be shut away, even without the testimony of a psychiatrist seing the patient!

Otherwise there are in relation to the efforts of the chiefpsychiatrist from time to time in various places efforts, to give a small training to policemen/-women. But as there are a lot and also here the willingness and tolerance is diversified, so the results come only with the time and when these people get their experience.

Of course still a lot could be said, but this gives you at least some ideas of mine.

I presume that you are asking this question so that one day the justice system will better understand the challenges of people with Autism?   Mental health services only have a limited knowledge of what Autism is and for the most part that will be to list diagnostic criteria, not to show you how an Autistic person reacts to strange situations such as coming into contact with law enforcement. 

For example if you put yourself in the position of a person with extreme sensory issues and social awkwardness in the position of an arrest...

From the Autistic perspective :  A strange person is putting their hands on you, invading your personal space telling you to stop what you are doing when they don’t know if you have finished yet, they are loud too close too intense. 

You feel yourself drifting shutting down to block out the threat you feel. You go rigid you are not cooperating. The strange person is getting louder more angry being rough now grabbing your hands to handcuff them. 

You feel confined you scream you are in extreme fight or flight mode, you are sweating.  When you get to the station you can’t understand what anyone is saying or what they want you are slammed in a cell. 

The smells are overpowering (the cell is clean and spotless) the smells are too different you have never smelled them before they are too overpowering. The clanking of everything is overloading your sensory system you drift in and out of awareness. 

You don’t know why you are here or how to make the situation stop.  You start stimming to calm yourself down you spin and rock and hum.  They see you on the camera they call a psychiatrist.  You are drugged. 

The drugs are too overpowering for your system which is extremely sensitive and messes up your thought patterns you are jumbled in your thoughts now. 

You sleep.  You wake up you are still there.  You are taken for questioning you cant understand what they are saying it sounds like mumbled juberish you cant answer they get angry with you.

From the law enforcement side ….suspect resisted arrest was uncooperative. Refused to give personal details refused to be fingerprinted. Locked up… showed extreme anti-social behaviour was attended by psychiatrist.  In the interview the suspects behaviour was extremely suspicious no eye contact avoidant non co-operative. Should be held for a further 48 hours pending further evidence being gathered.

Any understanding that you want to convey has to close the gap between the first and second scenario.

I suppose that is a promotional question on which mental  diagnostics can deal with mental processing on intentional or unintentional decision made by suspicious,or the spectrum , through psychiatric lab or studying the memory for the event ,I mean that the complicated aspect of a crime according to the civil law can be adapted through international private law or criminology,a kind adaptation need to be regulated ,at international organizations ....

Having evaluated multiple offender programming initiatives funded by the US DOJ, with particular focus on dually diagnosed offenders - co-occurring mh and sub. abuse issues, it has become obvious that "rehabilitation" (which is almost categorically some variant of cognitive behavioral therapy/re-programming) supposes cognitive ability to engage the motivational change oriented treatment. It is clear that a great many of the treated offenders do not have the mental capacity to engage, yet the sessions continue in vain on as though they do and this lack of individualized treatment is reflected later in recidivism rates interpreted as program failure. Failing to screen for IQ and autism, which is odd given a battery of instruments to detect MH and SA, both unfairly labels programs as ineffective when they are really ineffective for inappropriate mismatched participant groups - as well as neglecting the needs of individuals in the programs... Calling attention to it is often deemed problematic and can generate friction with practitioner partners... it's a mess for sure, but it is imperative to start thoroughly screening at in-take!

Caroline, add to that lack of eye contact (always a sign of untrustworthiness and antisocial personality type), delays in answering questions (due to auditory processing delays) or giving echolalic responses because you don't understand the question, extreme sensory overload assaulting every sense and overwhelming anxiety because you don't understand what is happening...recipe for disaster :-(

You might, perhaps, find the following links to the following research-based materials produced for CJS and allied professionals in England and Wales of some interest.

http://www.autism.org.uk/our-services/training-and-consultancy/nas-online-training/ask-autism-online-modules/autism-and-the-police-service.aspx

http://www.cps.gov.uk/Publications/prosecution/autism_-_checklist_for_prosecutors_v2.pdf

http://www.theadvocatesgateway.org/toolkit

http://www.bps.org.uk/psychology-public/sharing-our-science/autism-and-criminal-justice-system/autism-and-criminal-justice-system

There are more materials following shortly!

I am also interested in the effect of the meltdown and idiosyncratic behaviours

and how they seem to enragen police... even though police procedures all too often seem 'tailor-made' to instigate such behaviors in the first instance.

When those with ASDs truly respond at a point of uncontrollability they are getting shot, beaten and smothered to death by police in the USA and elsewhere.

In Sydney, Australia earlier this year, a young lady with Aspergers was shot dead by police after she lost mindfulness and began wandering teasingly near traffic with a knife in her hand.

Not really an answer but I am further contextualising the matter to indicate the severity of the shortfall between Police procedures, and keeping people with ASD safe around them.

Caroline, my Statement was more in General about the Problems between Justice and psychaitric Problems, while you filled it very lifely with meanings about autism. I really appreciated your description!

Caroline, my Statement was more in General about the Problems between Justice and psychaitric Problems, while you filled it very lifely with meanings about autism. I really appreciated your description!

Can/does Police training/consultancy extend to consider if control measures can be implemented by emergency call centre staff to assist distressed callers in providing more accurate and objective information?

Ie: can, have or are we develop/ed/ing categorical markers for types and levels of threat reported.. along a rubric format potentially able to 'narrow down' (or group) descriptive behavioural indicators more efficaciously toward identifying potential domains in mental health disorders? This could also concern police profiling tactics, and even best practice for when they stop and question people, request compliance in conducting any public interaction really.. or assess grounds for reasonable suspicion, just the same.

I have an example: A few months ago, in Australia- the government announced new 'border patrol' police would conduct 'sweeps' at Melbourne train station to check people for their visa and citizenship. (I'm not joking). They cancelled this announcement following a media backlash and public outcry - but not before they had conducted an informal 'dry run' the night before cancellation.

A facebook friend of mine repeated an interesting anecdote: His friend had been passing through Melbourne central train Station when he was called-out to by (reportedly) Junior division police described as quite young, and in a manner that indicated a relative lack of experience.They abruptly stopped and questioned the fellow around 9pm, not a particularly suspicious circumstance - but they wanted to know 'what he was doing there' and if he could furnish identification. The closest guess was that he had been profiled because he had a 'Mohawk' hairstyle, shorts and a singlet.

The gentleman (unbeknownst to police) suffered severe Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Also, he passed through this area from work most nights and had never been stopped before. The further context is that this fellow was very slightly built, and not under the influence of any drugs at all. Under these circumstances it would not be unusual for anyone to experience some level of increase in fight or flight - yes a marker that police must be accustomed to observing before having to deal with resisting behaviours or even attacks. Of course what had happened was their unexpected, unexplained and aggressive behaviour had triggered symptomatic tremors and the man began shaking uncontrollably, he could not get a verbal response out quick enough as a panic attack set in- and the police instantly slammed him onto the paving, cuffed him, and beat him after they told him to stop 'resisting' then failed to identify his tremors were involuntary.

If police don't know why somebody has responded in such a manner and will not answer them they're certainly legally allowed to consider compliance measures. However, what if they had shoulder cameras that could track body movements in real time (the average Xbox or playstation games machine can)"

Linked to a pattern-recog program that could cross reference the motion capture data in real time, to instantly detect the fundamental difference between typical fight-or-flight reactions and the triggered qualities of disordered tremors of GAD? Or triggered Autistic 'Stimming' behaviours? Involuntary muscle spasms? Even the level of activity to which 'typical' fight or flight elevations ACTUALLY constitute a threat????

Not even any need for police to attempt clumsy interrogations that pass for objective measures for confirming a threat via giving  the 'suspect' a chance to explain themselves - when so many psychological disorders render effective speech under duress impossible.

It protects the police as well. They do not have to be accountable or cross-examined for their line of questioning when they are in error of interpreting a response as a threat. And they would not have to be legally accountable for the decision to film, because the camera application would automate filming the instant the threat-detection program computed a threshold for that. Privacy would be upheld (indeed, protected) unless a law was actually being broken and evidence was legally required.

We have public  security cameras already that record your gait, facial id, hone in on your iris and map micro-expressions on your face. This is already possible!

The rubric-database idea I had could service both police cameras in one way... and in another way monitor and guide call centres during real time emergency calls and only prompt responding staff when trials established efficacious applications. Who knows if it would work for everything, but it could work in many examples.

Load an enhanced interactive DSM-5 that virtually maps and matches traitwise behaviours and disordered patterns of movement. Refine it to 'gait' level accuracy to iidentify when people are simply mimicking mental health exacerbations, or perform such manoeuvres somehow by coincidence. Film, study and map and model how genuine symptomatic bodily actions are 'masked' and design a program to detect the subtle discrepancies that surely must exist as a point of verifiable accuracy at some micro-level. Then do it all with sound capture where accompanying vocal effects apply to holistically indicate some conditions :) 

Also develop the sound rubric to assess, and potentially flag the likelihood of callers attempting this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting 

Because I suspect many people with social deficit conditions (ASD, ODD etc..) have swatting pulled on them, and also many people suffering mental illness may call police dispatch out of delusion, irrational fear, overreactions from meltdowns or emotional dysregulation, etc... can be very convincing at the time, or will regret it when mindfulness returns.

People get arrested, bashed, maimed and even die. I'm an Aspie myself thus very passionate about this topic. Such measures would protect us from police, the police from their own errors and help the police protect and serve- if that's even a departmental KPI anymore.

Law enforcement and Public education should have largely mitigated social stigma that criminalises neurodiversity/illness, and should have not only refined but revolutionised public engagement procedures around this decades ago. Your problem is political.

1-  Churches lobby governments and still won't acknowledge much of your research.

2-  What % of homeless people and socially-marginalised demographic groups experience mental illness? City mayors tend to run sweep operations when they need to talk about street crime and win votes. The ambiguity you are trying to refine networks to address… enables this.

Mentally vulnerable people are less likely to hire lawyers, self-advocate effectively, understand their rights and what police require of them… and more likely to react to police in a way that potential witnesses won’t see any different to the police.

The stigma, disadvantage and lack of social knowledge means there is less public attention and outcry when someone is both mentally ill/cognitively diverse/disordered  AND low SES or homeless. 3-   Prisons are privatised in many countries, and police have arrest, citation and fines enforcement quotas.

4-   Police departments prefer to buy shiny toys, especially before other departments get them…  than share large chunks of their budget with consultants that will streamline practices that deliver great reduction to their operational freedoms.

Having said all that, there is a lot of media attention on the issue you raise and social media of course. But I honestly think training police unless it is ongoing and a routine aspect of force operations is less effective if they are not agreeing to restructure policies and procedures that make them accountable for the training. Though perhaps I am cynical and assuming too much- this is a given part of the process you describe.

Lastly, I’m not arrogant enough to assume my ideas are new or unique. But if I have inexplicably  fluked anything innovative here in these comments…  please comment if you think so… and I may talk to senior academic staff at my university about my potential PhD research path in the area of cross-discipline research and tech development for this massive socio-cultural omission.

I myself have experienced conflict from such misconstrual of my own traitwise effects

If anyone finds any of it useful to the point I can get a published acknowledgement I’d be grateful.

If anyone does see a gap in your sector and is actually interested to run research on the concepts or in a position to conduct this kind of activity a co-authorship would be great if published and a job of some kind would be good if contracted.

OP I did actually genuinely start out just wanting to share ideas on it with you. So I’d dig your feedback. Probably a downvote, I’m guessing :P

Like I said, not holding my breath surely all these ideas are under development, already developed and already claimed. But nothing like it is rolling out in my country so I say just in case. I’m poor.

Don’t worry all, I won’t make a habit of lurking around answering questions here to somehow summarise by implying I’ve just generated innovations, and then top it off begging for breaks hahahahaha. I am dreaming, let me dream! Oh God what Am I doing.

I will run it past the head of my school to see what’s been done in Australia because the tech aspect is an angle I don’t see in law enforcement use. The database idea could theoretically be done with a stack of memory cards I suppose. Emergency dispatch callers would have to develop long arms and superhuman shuffling skills however :P

I am very passionate about this topic however and hope you enjoyed the answer all the same.

Hmmm... and my short answer is: Use cross-discipline collab with tech firms to get the police on board, and go multi-disciplinary. Especially if it's security tech development firms with products they are already using. They like toys. everything thing from Apps to portable to what I said before.

Plus, as an Anthrop Major also.. I've been learning that this measure - smart tech that does the thinking and processing for them, if easy enough to use.. will culturally load the phenomenological effect of them adopting the useage as a ritualised practice in a way you can never get with a training manual or seminar.

You still get to run training seminars and develop manuals. And those earlier idea I said about developing the DSM-5 and the massive amount of work, experimentations and trials with participants etc to roll out workable tech will also generate reams of new research data across mental health, medical, psychological, psychiatric etc.. fields you can use for untold other projects.

That's based on theory that we are all basically becoming cyborgs, and loving it. And based on earlier theory that we ritualise routine use of multimedia/purpose things with screens, buttons and repetitive activations, that can be incorporated into our daily goals. And who doesn't love pushing a button or just wearing something to see a significant work performance that will be attributed to your performance and activity.

Carrying  a manual  around wouldn't work. The only other comparable measure I think that could come close is training specialist divisions. Otherwise anything traditional of course with regular police will mitigate things of course. But you have to get them excited to get more collaboration and interest.

I mean, in Australia we have 'Psychiatric emergency teams (PET)' who should supposedly be called if mental health emergencies are called in. In domestic cases where the caller actually already knows the intimate details of the perpetrator that is very worthwhile, and they are used a lot for suicide prevention too. They specialise in non-lethal tactics, so really are like a tactical response group that DOES truly know what to do.

But you are up against the same problem of no one else ever really know how to identify particular symptomatic effects from criminal traits and risk assessments that can be made in context.

I assume most countries already have something like our PET teams.