I was born and raised in a very deprived part of South London and went to schools that had a lot of challenges, due to poor funding and poor leadership. My senior school was failing so badly that it closed a year after my year left. Although there were no gangs to speak of then in the early 80s like there are now, we did see the results of what happens when governments do not invest in the lives of what we might call disaffected youth.
I have neurodivergent friends who were failed by the education and the social care system in the 80s and 90s and ended up in and out of prison as a child and then again as an adult. They were missed, misdiagnosed and then late identified as ADHD and AuDHD in adulthood. Too many adults are reaching crisis before discovering they are autistic and ADHD - often both.
In my 30s I ended up working with young homeless people and from there went on to work for an NHS drug and alcohol service based within a prison. I eventually became the Senior Practitioner, managing teams of forensic drug workers. Looking back now I can confidently say that all of my clients were neurodivergent. The percentage who were autistic is unclear but I can confidently say that the percentage who were ADHD and AuDHD was extremely high (many also probably with a PDA profile who had been misdiagnosed with ODD). Most of my clients were involved with gangs and had been groomed, exploited and violated in the most horrific ways possible. There are stories I could relay that would shock many people and I was hearing these on a daily basis. We need to understand that so many people in prison are not bad people, but often extremely vulnerable people who end up doing 'bad' things, often people who are survivors of sexual abuse, violence, domestic violence, exploitation, etc and often misdiagnosed with personality disorders. It is also important to stress that neurodivergent people are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators.
The prison service has released what are very tame figures regarding prisoners who are neurodivergent; In 2021 The Chief Inspector of Prisons estimated that 50% of those in UK prison are neurodivergent with a large percentage being dyslexic. In my opinion the figure regarding neurodivergent people in prison is possibly closer to 80%!
There is also a very high percentage of women in prison with brain injury, due most likely to extremely high levels of historic domestic violence and other abuse. Brain injury comes under acquired neurodivergence, along with epilepsy and addiction (and many other things).
Why are our prisons literally full of neurodivergent people? We can ask the same about psychiatric units and the number of neurodivergent people who are unhoused. The answer is simple in many ways despite this being a complex issue - society too often fails those who are the most vulnerable and the most marginalised.
The school to prison pipeline is not talked about enough, but it is leading to so many young people, most of whom I guarantee are neurodivergent, ending up in the criminal justice system. Our education system is designed for children who learn in a certain way, it is very much suited to those who have brains that are not neurodivergent. Those who are neurodivergent often do not do well - fact. Some scrape through but many and in fact the majority are traumatised by school. In research carried out by Sophie E Connolly et al in 2024 ’92.1% of CYP currently experiencing school distress were described as neurodivergent and 83.4% as autistic’ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37810599/
Many of these neurodivergent children and young people are burnt out, unsupported and either ‘not seen’ or seen as a problem. Then there is intersectionality; how many of these traumatised CYP who are not identified, not only because so many neurodivergent children are still missed but because of things such as gender and race? We make judgements based on social normativity and things such as implicit bias. We often even say that identifying and diagnosing CYP is labelling them, but we can be very quick to label them as naughty, trouble makers, defiant, shirkers, lazy and then criminals if they end up involved in offending behaviour. Why are we not more curious? It’s so easy to blame them and not look at the systems and wider society that has absolutely failed them.
People who experience addiction are neurodivergent and that is because addiction re-wires the brain - permanently. But also so many ADHDers and AUDHDers end up using and abusing substances and end up in addiction. Drink and drugs (and other things such as gambling etc), release huge quantities of dopamine in the brain and nervous system and that is what an ADHDer desires - the dopamine fix. Differences in GABA in an ADHD brain also means there is less inhibition, more risk taking and impulsivity.
I categorically believe (as do many others) that if ADHD and AUDHDers were identified early enough and put on appropriate ADHD medication when required, that so many would not end up addicted to drink, drugs, gambling, offending, etc. I know people who have had past addictions who are now on ADHD meds and in recovery, functioning and no longer in and out of prison.
ADHD meds save lives.
Early identification and appropriate support for neurodivergent people saves lives.
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