My aunt, who is a social worker, suggested that we write to aspies who are in jail. A considerable portion of those in jail have learning disabilities. To pick those with high probabilities of being on the spectrum, we could ask for pen pals with NLD or ADHD, maybe. Has anyone tried anything like this?
Interesting idea, how would the jailed aspies be identified? There are existing penpal schemes, I wonder if they could be approached and asked if they have aspies on the list?
There are issues of personal safety however, a person would not know why a person was in prison, and they would have your full home address. That goes for anyone in prison, not specifically aspies.
They wouldn't have to have my full address if I could forward it through some other organization. I like to write to authors, so often I send letters to publishers or groups that will forward the letter on.
The groups that I've seen for prison support, like Amnesty International, you write directly.
Hmmm... This makes me wonder...
I wonder if there are any aspies incarcerated, effectively because they are aspies?
What if, say, an aspie has been freaked out by being touched (or any other thing that might freak an aspie out) and has, say, reacted extremely badly, or even violently...
I can imagine there might be many aspies in the prison system who are there because they could find no other way to survive but to work in the "underworld" of crime. If your aunt, the social worker, knows of any incarcerated aspies that would like to be my penpal I'd be happy to write to him or her, providing the crime wasn't something ghastly.
Erm. Once I got so lonely that I resorted to writing to inmates just to have the illusion that someone in the world cared whether I was dead or alive. (At the time I did not know about high functioning autism or that I was smack dab in the middle of said spectrum.) I found it too demanding for me... the inmates were extremely bored and hoped to get one or more letters per week out of their correspondents. I just didn't have the energy to keep up with it. Also it made me realize how boring my life is: no excursions or adventures to discuss, no family, nothing... bleh.
Your mileage may vary. By the way, I used my post office box as my address when corresponding, I assume in other countries you can also get a PO Box from the postal system or some private enterprise equivalent for privacy.
So, if you've got the energy to write frequently, I'd say give it a try!
I've seen ads in 2600 (the hacker magazine) from Aspie prisoners looking for penpals.