Those girls deserve the ASBOs, they were threatening other people and being abusive. They needed to be punished otherwise they would continue to behave in that way which others don't deserve to live with. There is a possibility that their behaviour was provokes but it seems unlikely
And you know this for a fact do you? Were you there? Did you witness the events that led up to confrontations or their anti-social behaviour? If you weren't then you cannot possibly state this as fact in the way you are doing. Even the court has adjourned for further medical reports before making any final decision. If the court, which is in possession of witness statements hasn't passed judgment, how can you?
I don't like how the mother is using the fact that they have Asperger's as a reason to appeal, she claims she just wanted to put it all behind her but then she says she doesn't. That form of nt behaviour irritates me. By her saying that her daughters behaviours should be excused because of Asperger's, gives out the negative impression that Autism causes criminal behaviours, spreading misconception and giving power to organisations like Autism Speaks that want a cure for Autism.
I don't think the articles are necessarily equating Aspies=criminals. I think the mother is putting forward an argument explaining how situations of confrontation escalated (as a result of AS), which led to behaviour that may be found to be criminal. I don't think the mother is making excuses, I think she's asking for assistance, tolerance and understanding.
Who among us hasn't experienced frustrating, frightening situations pre-diagnosis, or before we learned more about AS and how it affects us? Doesn't learning about AS and being able to explain ourselves to others help to avoid confrontation and difficult situations in future?
Also she won't be paying for the appeal, tax payers will which is an unfair waste of money.
Don't even get me started on how much of a waste of money is the criminal (in)justice system. Only recently, I read an article about a local authority crackdown on youth anti-social behaviour and the answer was to spend more money on policing and community officers in the hotspot areas. They always deal with the symptoms, not the cause. Instead of spending money on policing, why not spend money on youth clubs and sports facilities for young people?
And as for the criminal (in)justice system as it relates to females, I suggest you get hold of a copy of Dame Helena Kennedy QC's 'Eve was framed' in which you can read statistics about how many more women are incarcerated than men for 'minor' non-violent crimes, such as not paying for a television licence, and how females are given much harsher sentences than those given for similar crimes to men.
Criminalising these young women would not solve their problems. All they would do, if they were locked up, is learn how to commit fraud and other offences. Prisons are universities of crime. [moo]It angers me that the newspaper doesn't explain Asperger's fully and just , because a person who knows nothing about it will form judgements from articles like this.[/quote]And it angers me that you don't have clue about how the criminal justice system is misused to criminalise vulnerable people who actually need medical and therapeutic help instead of locking up. Do you know what proportion of prison inmates have some kind of mental health problem? Do you know how many people with mental health problems commit suicide while in prison? Because it is not an appropriate place for them.
[moo]"who a medical expert say suffer from Asperger's Syndrome."
By 'This Is Lancashire' using the terminology "say" invokes doubt into the sentance implying that they don't really have it and Asperger's is just an excuse that can be used. This is clearly a trashy newspaper that uses cheap tricks to attract readers, they have not taken into account Autistic peoples view points and encourages people to think of people being Autistic as sufferers. I'm going to send them an email complaining and giving them a link to the NAS advice for writting articles that involve Autism
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=243&a=4293 [/quote]Nope. You're wrong. "say" is a very neutral term, it's factual. Journalists need to quote their sources and that's a very bland way of doing so. If they wanted to cast doubt on the veracity of their source, they could have used... off the top of my head "claims" "alleges" or "purports" To use the word "say" isn't a cheap trick at all. It's pretty standard, neutral journalism, in fact.
[moo]There is a similar story that i read in the metro (newspaper given out free on the trains) last year, about a boy who was 12/13 who was the youngest person to be given an ASBO who had asperger's syndrome.
Also to clear up what an ASBO is for those who don't know what they are. They are a punishment given to people in Britain as a way to monitor criminals. People with an ASBO have a electronic tag and are tracked, they are given certain rules they have to abide by such as a curfew and no criminal activites and if those rules are broken then they go straight to prison. There is discussion over whether they are a good form of punishment because some chavs see them as a cool thing to get.[/quote]Well, all I can say is that I'm very glad that when I was a teenager in the UK there was no such thing as ASBOs. As someone who wasn't diagnosed, I was referred to an educational psychologist for being "disruptive" in class. Luckily for me, I was assessed as having an IQ of 150 and I always scored good grades in exams, so I was a bit of anomaly.
I'm sure that had I been so confused and frustrated and badly behaved with poor exam results, I would have been treated very differently. Perhaps I would have been served with ASBOs instead of my headteacher spending a lot of time with me when I was excluded from a particular class due to a personality clash with a teacher.
I'm very alarmed that some bad behaviours that in my teenage years would have been bad behaviour that teenagers are allowed to grow out of and put behind them are now being turned into ASBO-fare that criminalises and stigmatises a young person for life and potentially affects the rest of their life.