Autism & Law Enforcement: Eye-Opening Truths & Solutions

Episode Overview

• This episode features Dr. Lyndsy Macri, a BCBA who specializes in creating autism awareness and response training for law enforcement, addressing the critical gap in training that often overlooks autistic adults.
• The discussion highlights that autistic individuals are seven times more likely to interact with police, yet most training focuses on children, leaving officers unprepared for adult encounters.
• Dr. Macri shares her journey and methodology, emphasizing the need for BCBAs to understand police culture, prioritize officer safety in their training, and provide direct, actionable strategies.
• The conversation provides practical advice for both behavior analysts seeking to work with law enforcement and for families to proactively prepare for potential police interactions, especially regarding elopement.

Key Concepts

• The Adult Training Gap: Most autism training for law enforcement is aimed at children, failing to prepare officers for interactions with autistic adults, who are statistically more likely to encounter them.
• Police Culture Immersion: To be effective, trainers must understand the priorities and perspectives of law enforcement by participating in ride-alongs, Citizens' Police Academies, and studying their training materials.
• Actionable vs. Emotional Training: Officers respond best to concrete, proactive strategies that prioritize both their safety and the citizen's safety, rather than emotionally-driven presentations.
• POST Credentialing: Getting training courses POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) credentialed makes them more valuable to police departments as it counts toward their required training hours, similar to CEUs for BCBAs.
• Reciprocal Training Model: A "trade training for training" approach, where BCBAs offer autism training in exchange for sitting in on police training, is an effective way to build rapport and mutual understanding.
• Common Police Interactions: The most frequent reasons for police contact with autistic individuals are reports of a suspicious person, medical or crisis events, and missing person reports (elopement).
• Proactive Family Safety Tools: Families can utilize tools like K9 scent kits to prepare for elopement, as they are more reliable in a crisis than items that can be left behind, such as an AAC device.

Quotes

• At 0:00 - "A lot of these autism trainings for police departments are aimed towards the younger ages... they're not really taking into account that these children are growing up to be adults." - Lyndsy Macri explains the critical gap in current law enforcement training regarding autism.
• At 1:50 - "Autistic individuals are seven times more likely to have an interaction with law enforcement than neurotypical individuals, and yet some officers receive little to no formal training on autism." - Host Jeron Trotman shares a statistic that highlights the urgency of the topic.
• At 10:40 - "They actually wanted to be told, like, 'Yes, of course we don't want to harm your child, but what do we do?'" - Lyndsy Macri explains that officers were seeking clear, actionable strategies rather than emotionally-driven presentations from parents.
• At 18:49 - "A lot of departments have Citizens Police Academies... and you know, it's once a week, you go to the department and every week they talk about a different topic." - Lyndsy Macri suggests a way for professionals and community members to understand police operations and build relationships.
• At 19:59 - "Consider trading training for training... I spent a lot of time saying, 'Hey guys, I'll come and train your department if I can sit in on your standardized sobriety testing.'" - Lyndsy Macri describes her method for gaining firsthand knowledge of police procedures by offering her expertise in exchange for access to their training.
• At 21:18 - "I wasn't always thinking about officer safety first. And I think that the more that you kind of think from the officer's perspective, the more you're going to not lose your audience there." - Lyndsy Macri shares a crucial lesson she learned: to successfully train law enforcement, one must understand and address their primary concern for safety.
• At 23:13 - "The K9 scent kit... what you do is you take a piece of the individual's clothing and you rub it around the inside of this little container, and it's good in your fridge for upwards of a couple years." - Lyndsy Macri explains how a scent kit works as a proactive tool to help K9 units find a missing person.

Takeaways

• To effectively train law enforcement, BCBAs must first gain cultural competency by engaging with police culture directly through programs like Citizens' Police Academies and by prioritizing officer safety in all training content.
• For families of individuals who may elope, implement proactive safety measures like K9 scent kits, as these are more reliable for tracking than relying on devices or items the person might not have with them.
• Professionals can increase the appeal and legitimacy of their training for police departments by getting their courses POST-credentialed, which allows officers to receive official training credit.
• Adopt a reciprocal learning approach when collaborating with other fields; offering to trade expertise is a powerful way to build mutual respect, gain invaluable insight, and create more effective partnerships.