His name’s Nigel, and he can’t read. He can’t recognize letters, and the concept of color confuses him. He doesn’t like to walk upright. But he sketches like Picasso. He does three-digit multiplications in his head. And he can parrot back anything you read to him, word-for-word.Nigel has autism. When Nigel is upset, Nigel screams – and he does so very loudly, with no concept of control, consequences, or offending others. He doesn’t understand emotions or cause-and-effect in any situation. He’s a free-floating agent in a world where one moment does not logically connect to the next, and where simple things like motives are incomprehensible.

One day Nigel will become an adult. If he’s not taught to control his emotions – if he’s not taught what emotions are – his rages will become harder and harder to deal with. His obsessive collections will become more and more intrusive. There could come a day when he crosses the line and his lack of social grace turns criminal.

What do you do with criminals who live in the shadow land between comprehending what they’ve done, and having no concept of consequence? What do you do with the adult with autism who beats her mother to death and realizes that it’s wrong, but not that it’s permanent? What do you do with people incapable of premeditating crimes, but prone to violent outbursts?

Currently, people with autism receive the same criminal sentences as people without autism do. In extreme cases, people with autism have been acquitted by reason of insanity – and then put in mental hospitals. Neither solution does much good.

People with autism have a harder time in prison than most, and the disruption to their normal routines and the violence they fall victim to can cause psychological harm.

The question is this: What is the point of prisons? Do we hope to reform criminals by punishing them? Do we want them off the streets? Or do we simply want justice – an eye for an eye, a sojourn in jail for a sex offense?

People with autism are not scheming devils, and most of their crimes affect only those they’re close to. Keeping them locked up does nothing to make the world safer.

It’s only if we want ‘revenge’ that sentencing adults with autism to prison serves its purpose. Doing so puts them through psychological hell. Besides disrupting the orderly life they crave, prison exposes them to a violent world. In that violent world, people with autism, because of their social oddities, are often the unassuming target.

I would hope that in our country we can comprehend goals more sophisticated than revenge. I would hope that if we truly wanted to better society, we would be open to creative solutions for dealing with all members of society – those with autism included.