Harry Blagg - Decolonising Justice for Aboriginal youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

This book reflects multidisciplinary and cross-jurisdictional analysis of issues surrounding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and the criminal justice system, and the impact on Aboriginal children, young people, and their families.

This book provides the first comprehensive and multidisciplinary account of FASD and its implications for the criminal justice system from prevalence and diagnosis to sentencing and culturally secure training for custodial officers. Situated within a decolonising approach, the authors explore the potential for increased diversion into Aboriginal community-managed, on-country programmes, enabled through innovation at the point of first contact with the police, and non-adversarial, needs-focussed courts. Bringing together advanced thinking in criminology, Aboriginal justice issues, law, paediatrics, social work, and Indigenous mental health and well-being, the book is grounded in research undertaken in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The authors argue for the radical recalibration of both theory and practice around diversion, intervention, and the role of courts to significantly lower rates of incarceration; that Aboriginal communities and families are best placed to construct the social and cultural scaffolding around vulnerable youth that could prevent damaging contact with the mainstream justice system; and that early diagnosis and assessment of FASD may make a crucial difference to the life chances of Aboriginal youth and their families.

Exploring how, far from providing solutions to FASD, the mainstream criminal justice system increases the likelihood of adverse outcomes for children with FASD and their families, this innovative book will be of great value to researchers and students worldwide interested in criminal and social justice, criminology, youth justice, social work, and education.

Harry Blagg is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Western Australia (UWA) Law School and Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Community Justice Centre in the Law School.

Tamara Tulich is a Senior Lecturer at the UWA Law School.

Robyn Williams is a Nyoongar woman with extensive experience as a FASD trainer, advocate, and researcher. She works at the Medical School, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, and the University of Melbourne.

Raewyn Mutch is a Ngi Tahu woman of New Zealand and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia, and Invited Faculty for the Harvard Program for Refugee Trauma, Global Mental Health, Trauma and Recovery (20192020).

Suzie Edward May is a Lawyer and Research Officer at the UWA Law School and a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Community Justice Centre.

Dorothy Badry is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary.

Michelle Stewart is an Associate Professor at the University of Regina on Treaty Four Territory.

Criminology in Focus

Series Editor: Sandra Walklate

This series offers a space for a short format book series which showcases and puts the spotlight on new research in criminology. We are interested in books that fit the short-form model; for example: theoretical think pieces, developments in criminal justice policy, paradigm shifting innovations in the fields, a compelling case study that would be of interest to an international readership. We would like to attract big names as well as up-and-coming scholars; all books should speak and contribute to international criminological debates and conversations.

1 Decolonising Justice for Aboriginal Youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

Harry Blagg, Tamara Tulich, Robyn Williams, Raewyn Mutch, Suzie Edward May, Dorothy Badry and Michelle Stewart

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Harry Blagg, Tamara Tulich, Robyn Williams, Raewyn Mutch, Suzie Edward May, Dorothy Badry, and Michelle Stewart

The right of Harry Blagg, Tamara Tulich, Robyn Williams, Raewyn Mutch, Suzie Edward May, Dorothy Badry, and Michelle Stewart to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-35109-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-32552-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by codeMantra

This book is dedicated to the memory of Ms Clarke.

Dr Dorothy Badry, PhD, RSW, is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary. Her primary research interests focus on FASD and child welfare, womens health and FASD, housing and homelessness, advancing knowledge on FASD, FASD mental health, suicide and justice, loss and grief issues. She teaches an online course on FASD and child welfare for social work students across the Prairie Provinces in the summer session. Dorothy has been a member of the Canada FASD Research Network Action Team on the Prevention Network Action Team since 2008 and the Child Welfare Research Lead since 2017. She co-chaired the national conference The Future of Child Welfare,held in Calgary in 2018 in partnership Prairie Child Welfare Consortium (PCWC); Provincial and Territorial Directors of Child Welfare, and; Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary. Prior to beginning her work at the University of Calgary in 2002, she worked for 16 years in various positions in child welfare with Alberta Children Services, sparking her interesting in FASD. She was the co-principal investigator on the Brightening Our Home Fires project in the Northwest Territories a FASD prevention project funded by the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (20102012). She has received numerous research grants on FASD from provincial and national funders, including PolicyWise, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the First Nations, and Inuit Health Branch of Canada, and has many publications on FASD research.

Professor Harry Blagg is a Professor of Criminology at UWA Law School and Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Community Justice Centre in the Law School. He has national and international standing as a leading criminologist specialising in Indigenous people and the justice system, and is one of a few scholars currently researching diversionary mechanisms for Aboriginal youth with FASD. He has conducted seminal funded research on Indigenous Night Patrols, the multi-agency approach, policing and Aboriginal communities, local justice partnerships, crime prevention, family violence, restorative justice, court innovations, and youth justice. His work is place-based, participatory, and innovative, with a focus on decolonising relationships and building fresh engagement spaces.