Guest editorial

Citation

Chaplin, E. and McCarthy, J. (2013), "Guest editorial", Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, Vol. 4 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jidob.2013.55404aaa.001

Guest editorial

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, Volume 4, Issue 1/2.

 

First we would like to thank Colin Dale and Emerald for allowing us the honour of being Guest Editors for this special edition. Within this double issue we have aimed to achieve a mix of papers that not only add to the research evidence base but also address some of the issues faced across a range of settings relating to people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC).

For this edition a series of papers were invited and include two case reports (Kellbrick and Radley, 2013; Raggi et al., 2013). These each describe a case from different specialist settings and illustrate a number of points including motivations for offending, assessment and treatment, how interventions targeted at core features associated with ASC that lead to or maintains the offending behaviour. Both studies demonstrate the complexity of care whilst also providing a context. Another paper highlights the special considerations when completing risk assessment in this group (Murphy, 2013). There are currently no formal risk assessment tools established for use in this group, putting a greater emphasis on qualitative assessment and formulation. There are two that papers have looked at specialist ASC secure services which have not been traditionally available for this group. In terms of clinical services we have two studies. The first study looks at admissions to low-secure services and compares characteristics of people with and without ASC and report that those with ASC were more likely to be younger, white, be admitted on forensic sections or from prison and were less likely to misuse substances (Haw et al., 2013). The second study looks at medium-secure services and offers a model for examining characteristics of this group along with an overview of the function and provision of this type of service (Barkham et al., 2013). The final papers consider some of the issues at the police and prison stages of the criminal justice system. The first looks at the excellent work of Autism West Midlands in the context of what many would regard as a failing criminal justice system for people with ASD (Archer and Hurley, 2013). The paper is a mixture of personal experiences, an insight into current practice and offers up ideas toward a potential solution for a number of current issues. Continuing the Criminal Justice System theme we have a paper that gives an overview of prison services for people with ASC and offers preliminary observations from an ongoing study of a local inner city prison (Underwood et al., 2013). The final paper we mention here offers an introduction and sets the scene for the edition (Chaplin et al., 2013).

We hope you enjoy this edition as much as we have enjoyed putting it together. Any one with different views, experiences or perspectives on any of the subjects mentioned relating to people with autism and/or intellectual disability please consider submitting an paper for a future edition of the journal.

Eddie Chaplin and Jane McCarthy