According to research, autistic individuals are at increased risk of receiving harsher treatment and penalties when interacting with the criminal justice system. Specifically, one study suggests that autistic individuals may be unfairly disadvantaged when perceived by non-autistic individuals due to differences in remorse. However, educating the public about autism may mitigate adverse outcomes in the legal field.

Scripps College

Given the symptomatology of ASD, there are several contributing factors that may affect an individual's understanding of the outside world. As such, this diversity yields many challenges in the legal field.

Autism Spectrum Disorder's Relationship to Crime, Punishment, and Reasoning

Burleigh, L., Weber, N., Lim, A., & Young, R. L. (2025). Perceived remorse and
          education: Their impact on mock juror judgements of autistic individuals. Journal
          of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
          https://doi-org.ccl.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s10803-025-06982-x

Perceived Remorse for Defendants with ASD

Presentations of remorse

The lower reasoning ability of autistic individuals suggests that autistic individuals may not consider the potential harmfulness of Actions when engaging in illegal activity. However research suggests that informing autistic people about intent/potential harm reduces the difficulties in reasoning.

Understanding of Wrongfulness

After investigating attitudes that criminal justice professions have toward offenders with Intellectual disabilities, researchers found that CJS staff groups held pervasive negative perceptions of offenders with intellectual disabilities. 

Attitudes Towards Offenders with Intellectual Disabilities 

The social and communication impairments associated with ASD make individuals vulnerable, especially when they are involved with the criminal justice system. As such, specific measures should be taken to improve communication and avoid the potential misinterpretation of  communication. Studies have explored the level of autism knowledge and awareness among undergraduate criminal justice students and the results suggested that they had moderate knowledge of ASD (but this knowledge did not appear to increase with time in respective programs). 

Criminal Justice Students' Knowledge about Autism

In light of the gap in empirical findings, researchers have recently examined how intellectual and Developmental Disabilities are represented in the criminal justice system. Adults with IDD were over‐represented in federal corrections and forensic inpatient care. Furthermore, medical complexity and rates of co‐occurring mental health conditions were higher for people with IDD than those without IDD.


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