TW: Autistic teenagers found guilty of heinous crime

That is just because of the very tough gun laws in the UK. There are around 6x as many murders per head of population in the US as in the UK.

Just to let you know, action is being taken about how autistic people are portrayed and perceived as a result of this information in the media thanks to a brilliant autistic advocate. 

This advocate has written a formal complaint about this. If you want to know more about this you can search for Aucademy Social on Facebook.

Indeed, I just read the news article below about one of the kids who hacked GTA6 and is autistic.

If you read the article he has indeed committed crimes but I cannot believe they’ve sentenced  an 18 year old (who is clearly incredibly gifted) to an indefinite hospital order.

It’s outrageously over the top and a waste of talent

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67663128 

Ditto with politics, and social values; either extreme-Left, or extreme-Right.

We live in a society where the civil liberties of rival groups are pitted up against each other. Add Schools, and Unis, to the equation; you shall expect war.

That is why I no longer support Libertarianism. Not every lifestyle can be, peacefully, accommodated.

lets be clear being autistic doesn't make you a good person. It doesn't make you a bad person. Arguably it can make you less suseptable to social presure. But of course that works both ways because there is social presure to do the right thing and social pressure to do the wrong thing too. Autistic people tend to gravitate to extreems. It's not so suprising that sometimes this can also be extreems of good and evil.

Perhaps the individuals concerned found it advantageous to be conveniently unable to speak.

That reminds me: I was surprised to hear the BBC use the term 'selective mutism' the other night when I thought that 'situational mutism' was the more accepted and correct way to describe that now. Even though what those two did was horrific beyond words, the term itself (irrespective of who its being applied to and what they've done) shouldn't be, well, selectively rolled back to a more outmoded way of saying it. 

Amerantin (former member) said:

They may have ASD but there are obviously many other things deeply wrong with this pair

Exactly.

The number of individuals who premeditate murder is extremely small, across whole populations. Autism isn't an indicator, as far as I know.

I don't think it's out of the ordinary for those who report on criminals to also note that they're autistic or suffer from a disorder or whatever. Whether that's actually the right thing to do is another matter, but I'd agree that it's not necessary in this case. 

Having said that, most reasonable people won't use this isolated incident to form some kind of idea of what autistic people are like. I dare say most people don't even care about that particular detail, it's just a horrific crime full stop.

Graham Young almost certainly had it.

LOL,  that's 100% me: 

"Young's new colleagues found him unpredictable; he could be surly and kept to himself, but on other days he was more cheerful. During breaks he usually sat alone reading, invariably a book on one of his favourite subjects: war, chemistry, the *** or famous murderers. He was not talkative unless one of his favourite topics was being discussed"

Graham Young almost certainly had it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Young

The pair of monsters that did this planned the attack in great detail and had a list of targets, not just the girl they actually murdered, and the attack itself was incredibly extreme and cruel.

They may have ASD but there are obviously many other things deeply wrong with this pair.

They should never be released from prison.

I think that the prison psychiatrists will identify many more conditions in this pair of monsters than just ASD.

Hopefully they will have many decades to do so.

ASD people can and will commit heinous crimes, especially if they have the "no empathy" ASD and not the "hyper empathy" kind. I did a lot of unlawful activities back then, but I managed to never get caught. Now I work with an active SC lol.

Anders Breivik has high functioning ASD, Antisocial disorder and Narcissism

Jeffrey Dahmer probably had ASD, but he is too busy being dead for having a proper diagnosis.

Adam Lanza had ASD, OCD and anorexia.

I agree with most of the comments here, I think it has nothing to do with autism (to some degree) maybe the attacker got triggered (haven't read the article) but to be fair, most autistic people, even those with less control, will not grab a knife and kill someone because they got frustrated.

Besides, your article says knife. In the UK? Resulted in death? Oh: What a SURPRISE.  

The UK is particularly known for the most murders involving knives, it did not need an autistic attacker to change that. A Stereotype but a fair true one.  

Yes hopefully. This tragedy will soon be replaced by another unfortunately.

Around the time I was first diagnosed (in 2000) Barry Bulsara was in the news for stalking Jill Dando.  I think most people would agree Autistic Awareness  has come a long way in the last 23 years.  This will be out of the news in a few weeks. And the world moves on.

Autonomistic said:

Cases like this might damage public support for the NAS campaigns to release autistic people who are wrongly detained 

I completely understand what you mean.

I don’t think it’s helpful and I think it’s damaging that huge news outlets such as the BBC are allowed to identify criminals as autistic and this could lead to even more stigma surrounding our community.

Autistic people can commit horrific acts too. I don't think it will damage Autistic people that much.  Autists have committed serious crimes before.