Longstaffe S, Chudley AE, Harvie MK, Markesteyn T, Neault D, Brown T. The Manitoba Youth Justice Program: empowering and supporting youth with FASD in conflict with the law.
Biochem Cell Biol 2017;
96:260-266. [PMID:
28977753 DOI:
10.1139/bcb-2017-0078]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) describes a constellation of physical, cognitive, neurologic, and behavioral impairments resulting from prenatal exposure to alcohol. FASD is recognized as being one of the most common causes of preventable brain injury in children. There had long been concerns that some youth in conflict with the law may be affected with FASD given repetitive patterns of offending and apparent lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions. In 2004, funding was received from Justice Canada for a pilot project with a cross-departmental steering committee working together to determine a best way of working across systems to provide FASD assessments to these youth. It was recognized that provision of timely FASD assessments would allow the court to provide more meaningful sentences taking into account the youth's strengths and challenges and enhance the changes of decreased recidivism and increased changes of rehabilitation. This paper describes the basic science around FASD and its diagnosis, provides a history of the FASD Youth Justice Program, and reports on legal issues, structure, statistics, accomplishments, and ongoing future challenges.
Collapse