Suspects with Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Pre-Trial Interview
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis aims to explore pre-trial access to justice for neurodiverse young adults, particularly those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by examining the pre-trial police interview. It adopts an in-depth view of the challenges and supports these individuals encounter as suspects during police interviews, focusing on their unique cognitive and social strengths and vulnerabilities. Moreover, it investigates the role of police officers during these interactions, including police training needs and accommodations for neurodiverse suspects. Primary objectives include identifying barriers to justice for ASD suspects from a selective umbrella review of the international literature and its application to the Irish pre-trial process, assessing suspect needs through a capabilities and vulnerability theoretical framework, and exploring best practices of the UK's 'Appropriate Adult' safeguard system. The thesis also examines real-life pre-trial investigative interview challenges, barriers, and support for a young male adult with ASD based on a Canadian case. Findings from the selective review highlight dissatisfaction within the ASD community towards police encounters, emphasising a lack of autism awareness, inadequate communication skills, and perceived victimisation or discrimination. It underscores insufficient recognition of the suspects' vulnerability due to ASD under the lens of vulnerability and human rights perspectives. The thesis also identifies gaps in police training on how to interact with ASD suspects and emphasises the need for culturally sensitive approaches. Furthermore, it considers the need for legal adjustments and structural changes in the criminal justice system, considering the European Convention on Human Rights' principles, to ensure equitable treatment of neurodiverse suspects. Suggestions for future work include developing an Autism and Justice Strategy in Ireland and devising a robust vulnerability screening strategy. The thesis also calls for creating autism-friendly environments, such as custody rooms, and triangulating Human Rights and Equality Act frameworks to better support ASD individuals' access to justice.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.034 | 0.131 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.012 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".