Teaching Clients to Safely Interact with Law Enforcement

Autistic people are at risk of increased negative interaction with police due to difficulty following directions, expressive and receptive language delays, difficulty reading social cues, self stimulatory behaviors, and gross motor difficulties. Ideally, police officers would be trained in managing people with developmental delays. Many areas are doing that (DC has a program called Community Intervention Officers). However, this isn't universal. Additionally, right now, different law enforcement like the FBI, DEA, ICE, and US Marshalls are being brought into cities. Since these departments are typically working different areas like cyber crimes or high level drug crimes, they aren't readily trained in working with youth who may have disabilities or mental health needs. They are also from outside communities so they are less in tune with local culture and community policing models. This makes interaction more difficult and more dangerous for the clients we work with.  However,  we can teach our clients how to more safely interact with law enforcement. 

One way is a comprehensive program that involves teaching how to get help from police, how to respond if someone is being detained by the police, and what to do if they are detained. We typically teach each part in waves and use a multiple exemplar method (teaching the skill using different modalities). 

Getting started

We want to have a few tools in place first:

1. Get parent consent. This is an emotionally charged topic and everyone has to be okay with it. 

2. Be sure you are aware of your assumptions, privilege, power imbalances, and cultural humility. Our field is dominated by middle class white women and many of us serve Black boys. For those of us in that demographic- we need to ensure we are considering that lens and that we are not putting families and kids in situations where they feel like they were pressured to let some white lady pretend to arrest their Black son. Open dialog and ensuring families are involved in approving the scripts and role play scenarios is essential. In addition to that, we need to ensure we aren't profiling who we run this program with. Ensure we aren't making assumptions over who “needs” it. All of our youth benefit and our youth who will be alone in the community should all absolutely be offered the opportunity (and families should not be pressured if they decline).

3. Get clients IDs to carry. We have students carry ID with name, diagnosis and parent number. Some wear  bracelets, necklaces, or cards in wallets. Dog tags can be particularly stylish for the boys.

4. We teach parent phone numbers so they can say it clearly. 

5. We try to schedule a meet and greet with the local police precinct. This is who will see the child most often so it's useful for them to know who they are. If your child travels via public transportation somewhere specific very often you can do the police location at that place too.

Here are some ways we approach teaching the program:

Getting Help from law enforcement

Getting help from law enforcement could be an emergency, asking for directions, being harmed, being lost, etc. We break down the teaching steps into these parts:

1. We provide a personalized social story with the rules

2. The student states what things they would ask for help for and scripts for asking for help. At this stage we work on identifying who law enforcement is as well 

3. Role play asking for help with staff at home

4. Role playing with an unfamiliar person outside of the community. This is usually another therapist or may be arranged with the police department if you have a relationship

What to do when someone else is being detained 

1. We provide a personalized social story with the rules

2. The student states what they will do (give space and walk away). You can get help if someone is being mistreated. (Note: while my personal beliefs may involve video taping which is legal- I would not encourage our client to do this as it creates an additional touch point with law enforcement that could escalate)

3. Role play 

4. Take natural environment data and do incidental teaching on ignoring and moving away in the community like people kissing or arguing. This doesn't have to be law enforcement related to practice 

What to do when detained

The most complicated step is practicing what to do when detained. This one is complicated because we want to be careful that we aren't criminalizing our youth. 

Motor skills

We like to start this goal by working on motor skills. One dangerous thing for people who are being arrested can be being perceived as resisting because their body is actually just struggling to move the way they are being asked to move- like being able to put hands behind their backs. In order to practice this without pretending to arrest students, I usually add an exercise program that includes chicken wing stretching and arms above the head stretching along with other unrelated things. This allows us to work on arrest skills without practicing it in the context of a police goal. 

Commands

I will also teach students to follow some basic commands. We make sure students  stop when they hear “Stop!” or “Don't Move!” We will do “Hands in the air” and “Back Up” We do these in role play and as games. Another one might be “sit” but doing it outside on the curb. This is about creating muscle memory for the phrases. Depending of the kid, I don't always associate this with an arrest script but just as following directions. However, any savvy kid will realize what the words are so don't gaslight them and pretend it's something else if that doesn't make sense. 

Hands in the air, scripts

We also teach the students when they hear these phrases to put their hands in the air and say “I have Autism. Please call my mom/dad. I have ID” They may end up saying it unnecessarily but I'd rather them be safe. This one is certainly law enforcement focused. I feel like this is important for our clients traveling independently. 

We also teach this as an MEI

1. They tell us what to do when a police offer says those words (stop etc) then the phrase

2. We role play it. We also role play what to do if a  non-police officer says those words so they don't over generalize

3. We have do not/have not done this in the community as a rehearsal/role play

   
   

It depends on whether the parents are comfortable and if it feels appropriate to practice the commands surrounding putting hands behind your back and behind your head. Hopefully they won't get to that point in a real interaction. The other commands can keep them from being considered a threat that could lead to escalation. I think it's worth weighing the risks of potential negative effects emotionally of practice versus likelihood of them needing the further skills. Often I won't practice. 

Verbal Scripts

There are also some verbal scripts I teach staff.  Usually I stick with the “I have Autism” script for kids. For clients with more advanced language I might teach this as well

1. When approached by law enforcement, say “Am I free to go?” If they say yes then leave 

2. If they say no, ask “Am I under arrest?”

3. If they say you are under arrest say “I want an attorney and to remain silent” (Heavy role plays on being silent)

4. Don't sign anything (heavy role plays on not signing anything)

This isn't a comprehensive list of things that need to be taught. We need to cover keeping hands out of pockets and not running for example, but this gives you some ideas for goals. We haven't had to use these in real life much. I created these programs with the support of local police and my interactions with MPD with my clients has always been really good. We still have to protect our youth though. I am about to do a new round of trainings for a few teenagers. It's both sad and empowering to give young people some tools. If you want more resources on safe interactions with police FreeDC has some great resources https://freedcproject.org/rights