‘People don’t like you when you’re different’: exploring the prison experiences of autistic individuals

ABSTRACT

There is little research regarding the prison experiences of individuals diagnosed with autism. Extant literature suggests that prison presents numerous challenges for autistic prisoners. This research explored the experiences of seven autistic men in a UK prison that houses individuals who are serving sentences for sexual convictions. Participants were interviewed using semi-structured interview schedules. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed with an applied inductive thematic analysis. The latter explicitly focuses on generating commonalities that emerge from the data that have practical (applied) utility. The analysis generated three superordinate themes: ‘Interacting with others’, ‘Being in prison’, and ‘My autism’. Participants described both helpful and challenging aspects of the prison experience, and the findings give rise to important implications and considerations regarding the prison experience of autistic individuals. This paper concludes by outlining practical recommendations for prisons to improve the management and support of autistic residents.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism
• Sexual offending
• Qualitative
• Thematic analysis
• Prison
• Autism spectrum condition

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support and guidance of HMP Whatton in facilitating this research. Sincere thanks to all the participants who gave up their time to help with this research, and the Healthcare department’s Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities team for their role in assisting the research team with recruitment of participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.