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516 Autism 19 (5) abuse, autism and head injuries are more common in murderers’, seems highly likely to be interpreted, at least by the lay reader, as meaning that people with autism are more likely to become murderers, despite research findings to the contrary. In fact, Allely and colleagues reviewed only studies of those very rare cases involving mass murderers and serial killers as opposed to murderers more generally.

People with autism may be at less risk for offending than the general population, and more likely to be victims of crime (eg Beadle-Brown et al., 2014). Nevertheless, there may be a very small group of people with autism at increased risk of committing crimes. For these individuals, a very complex combination of internal and external risk factors is likely involved. Indeed, this is the case for any offender.