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The purpose of this paper is to examine police officer perceptions about persons with intellectual disabilities.

In this study, 188 officers from three police districts in the Southeast USA were surveyed using a modified Social Distance Questionnaire.

Results indicate that the majority of police officers surveyed had little or no training with regard to disabilities and that most are willing to interact socially with individuals with intellectual disabilities. Further, this study found that female officers had significantly greater positive attitudes toward individuals with intellectual disabilities than male respondents and that white respondents were more knowledgeable about these individuals than those from minority backgrounds.

While these results are significant, it should be noted that the number of female and minority participants was relatively low.

The paper includes recommendations for professional development for police officer and criminal justice training programs.

As individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities are increasingly integrated into society, their vulnerability to mishandling by the criminal justice system and police officers intensifies. This paper allows police officers and those within the field of criminal justice an opportunity to examine perceptions as they seek to understand how police and general societal perceptions impact the way that people interact with persons with intellectual disabilities.

This paper fulfills a need to examine attitudes of police officers toward citizens with intellectual disabilities in the communities in which they live. These attitudes often affect the way that police officers interact with citizens and identify additional training needs to better prepare officers for diverse individuals they may will encounter.

Given that formal training on autism is still a relatively infrequent occurrence for police officers, the objective of this study is to expose and describe the formal and informal, nonorganizationally based means police officers receive on-the-job training regarding interactions with autistic individuals.

Using personal networks and snowball sampling, the authors interviewed 19 police officers from multiple US police departments who reported having known contact with an autistic individual while on duty. Interviews were transcribed and coded to identify themes describing formal training and informal means to learn about autistic persons during interactions.

The authors find that many officers received formal training on mental health, though few received specific training about autism. Most commonly, officers with a personal connection to autism (e.g. a child or loved one), passed down information and techniques to other officers on how to have positive encounters with autistic individuals. Officers also passed along field knowledge of known autistic individuals in patrol areas/beats to help others have positive interactions. Lastly, community members often assisted officers by sharing information about find where an individual may be located, may live or known personal characteristics/preferences.

Scholars examining police contact with autistic individuals infrequently detail the point of view and needs of officers in successfully interacting with this population. This work adds to this growing discussion by exposing how officers use personal experience, informal training and community members’ assistance as a stopgap for their general lack of training on how to interact with autistic individuals successfully and positively.