Random verbal abuse in the street

Welcome Eyes, I do not see your enquiry as a rude question (as you are asking about a life skills / health & safety matter and you did so being sensitive about not specifying the bad language deployed by the people causing you a problem).

It sounds like you are experiencing harassment.  What I cannot tell; is if the perpetrators are random strangers too inebriated to exercise the level of self-control conduct required of everyone in a public place - or if these people are part of a regular city scape who have noticed workers from hospitality / the nighttime economy with unsociable hours and get an abusive kick out of pestering that workforce for their own entertainment. 

Either way it is not acceptable and you should not have to experience those incidents.  Add into the consideration whether your appearance gives the harassing people a means of identifying one or more of your protected characteristics / potential vulnerabilities - there could be more to take into account than you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time of day (which really shouldn't matter ...but realistically does so)

Your measurement by which you base your comparisons perhaps ought to start by talking to colleagues and then asking the question: am I experiencing being more of a target than other employees navigating the area? 

If yes, does my appearance inform much of the harassment or are the antisocial harassers picking up upon and trying to exacerbate my Autism in particular?

I understand what you describe as I have worked unusually antisocial office hours in a couple of less than glamorous town centres.  It csn be both unpleasant and require a different level of risk management when trying to take your break or travel home.  That experience shouldn't happen but it can do so.

In one case, as this is work-related harassment, and we were experiencing some really grim behaviours around our building's area - several of us in the workforce had a talk with our Line Manager about the issues we were experiencing having our break outside the workplace at that time of day and then travelling home.

Our Manager: changed the arrangements at work by adding a microwave into our kitchenette and let our shift use a meeting room for our meal break with our packed "lunch" late at night. 

The Manager also encouraged people at work to become taxi-share buddies for travelling home.  They contacted a reputable local taxi firm and put in place a mandatory password system to be used by their drivers when arriving to collect us from work.  When someone booked to use a taxi; that person alone set the driver's password to be quoted back to them on arrival outside our building. 

Those of us who walked through the town centre after work to wait at a bus stop for the service to the park & ride car park were allowed to finish our shift 5 minutes earlier than usual.  This made it much more likely that we could walk to the bus stop and soon afterwards get straight on the bus (as opposed to just missing it by moments and then being stood there for 30 minutes, on our own, with all the nearby businesses already closed for the night).

Our Manager also reported the level of antisocial behaviour and harassment our team was experiencing in our building's area to both the Council and the Police.  The Council a) repaired a couple of defective street lights in our area, plus, b) relocated a litter bin out of our commercial street (so it didn't legitimise the problem behaviour people hanging around near our building at night). 

The local community / neighbourhood policing team added our area of town to their routes for particular attention every so often (there is a policing phrase for that - but I cannot remember what they called it).

One other thing our Manager did (which might not have been an obvious to many people source of help) they walked around our area in the daytime office hours - for three days in a row at lunchtime - speaking to some of the homeless community in our neighborhood; to tell them we were having problems and that we were trying to do something about it, asking were they finding particular groups were doing the same type of things to them too, and setting up some practical ways of assistance in which both our building / team operation and the local homeless community's local knowledge could be of service to each other.  That approach really worked out well (in both directions).  It was a good example of extending your community to jointly address an issue.

I am not saying the measures solved all of our issues - some of that extra risk unfortunately comes with working unsociable hours - but they dhd help everyone to feel less individually victimised. 

It also telegraphed to some of the undesirable element that we were not on our own - which seemed to help put off some of them from kicking off towards us in the first place - they seemed a bit less emboldened and not quite so sure of themselves - even when inebriated or under the influence of substance abuse.

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/hr-and-people-management/understanding-workplace-harassment

Local Councils want their town / city centres to be places without antisocial behaviour - and "Respect Orders" provide Police with a new legal instrument with which to try and help effect the changes in behaviour society requires.  Local authorities and the Police work together on these issues so people and businesses can report antisocial behaviour problems in town / city centres via either route:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-powers-to-clamp-down-on-anti-social-behaviour

ASB Help Victims Hub:

https://asbhelp.co.uk/victims-hub/

Find your local policing team by postcode (and see the antisocial behaviour trend in your area):

https://www.police.uk/pu/contact-us/find-force-local-policing-team/

Welcome Eyes, I do not see your enquiry as a rude question (as you are asking about a life skills / health & safety matter and you did so being sensitive about not specifying the bad language deployed by the people causing you a problem).

It sounds like you are experiencing harassment.  What I cannot tell; is if the perpetrators are random strangers too inebriated to exercise the level of self-control conduct required of everyone in a public place - or if these people are part of a regular city scape who have noticed workers from hospitality / the nighttime economy with unsociable hours and get an abusive kick out of pestering that workforce for their own entertainment. 

Either way it is not acceptable and you should not have to experience those incidents.  Add into the consideration whether your appearance gives the harassing people a means of identifying one or more of your protected characteristics / potential vulnerabilities - there could be more to take into account than you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time of day (which really shouldn't matter ...but realistically does so)

Your measurement by which you base your comparisons perhaps ought to start by talking to colleagues and then asking the question: am I experiencing being more of a target than other employees navigating the area? 

If yes, does my appearance inform much of the harassment or are the antisocial harassers picking up upon and trying to exacerbate my Autism in particular?

I understand what you describe as I have worked unusually antisocial office hours in a couple of less than glamorous town centres.  It csn be both unpleasant and require a different level of risk management when trying to take your break or travel home.  That experience shouldn't happen but it can do so.

In one case, as this is work-related harassment, and we were experiencing some really grim behaviours around our building's area - several of us in the workforce had a talk with our Line Manager about the issues we were experiencing having our break outside the workplace at that time of day and then travelling home.

Our Manager: changed the arrangements at work by adding a microwave into our kitchenette and let our shift use a meeting room for our meal break with our packed "lunch" late at night. 

The Manager also encouraged people at work to become taxi-share buddies for travelling home.  They contacted a reputable local taxi firm and put in place a mandatory password system to be used by their drivers when arriving to collect us from work.  When someone booked to use a taxi; that person alone set the driver's password to be quoted back to them on arrival outside our building. 

Those of us who walked through the town centre after work to wait at a bus stop for the service to the park & ride car park were allowed to finish our shift 5 minutes earlier than usual.  This made it much more likely that we could walk to the bus stop and soon afterwards get straight on the bus (as opposed to just missing it by moments and then being stood there for 30 minutes, on our own, with all the nearby businesses already closed for the night).

Our Manager also reported the level of antisocial behaviour and harassment our team was experiencing in our building's area to both the Council and the Police.  The Council a) repaired a couple of defective street lights in our area, plus, b) relocated a litter bin out of our commercial street (so it didn't legitimise the problem behaviour people hanging around near our building at night). 

The local community / neighbourhood policing team added our area of town to their routes for particular attention every so often (there is a policing phrase for that - but I cannot remember what they called it).

One other thing our Manager did (which might not have been an obvious to many people source of help) they walked around our area in the daytime office hours - for three days in a row at lunchtime - speaking to some of the homeless community in our neighborhood; to tell them we were having problems and that we were trying to do something about it, asking were they finding particular groups were doing the same type of things to them too, and setting up some practical ways of assistance in which both our building / team operation and the local homeless community's local knowledge could be of service to each other.  That approach really worked out well (in both directions).  It was a good example of extending your community to jointly address an issue.

I am not saying the measures solved all of our issues - some of that extra risk unfortunately comes with working unsociable hours - but they dhd help everyone to feel less individually victimised. 

It also telegraphed to some of the undesirable element that we were not on our own - which seemed to help put off some of them from kicking off towards us in the first place - they seemed a bit less emboldened and not quite so sure of themselves - even when inebriated or under the influence of substance abuse.

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/hr-and-people-management/understanding-workplace-harassment

Local Councils want their town / city centres to be places without antisocial behaviour - and "Respect Orders" provide Police with a new legal instrument with which to try and help effect the changes in behaviour society requires.  Local authorities and the Police work together on these issues so people and businesses can report antisocial behaviour problems in town / city centres via either route:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-powers-to-clamp-down-on-anti-social-behaviour

ASB Help Victims Hub:

https://asbhelp.co.uk/victims-hub/

Find your local policing team by postcode (and see the antisocial behaviour trend in your area):

https://www.police.uk/pu/contact-us/find-force-local-policing-team/

Thanks for this, some good tips and resources.