Law and Neurodiversity offers invaluable guidance on how autism research can inform and improve juvenile justice policies in Canada and the United States. This perceptive work examines the history of institutionalization, the evolution of disability rights, and advances in juvenile justice that incorporate considerations of neurological difference into court practice. In Canada, the diversion of delinquent autistic youth away from formal processing has fostered community-based strategies for them under state authority in its place. US policies rely more heavily on formal responses, often employing detention in juvenile custody facilities. These differing approaches profoundly affect how services such as education are delivered to youth with autism. Building on a rigorous exploration of how assessment, rehabilitation, and community re-entry differ between the two countries, Law and Neurodiversity offers a much-needed comparative analysis of autism and juvenile justice policies on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel.

Dana Lee Baker's profile page

Laurie A. Drapela's profile page

Whitney Littlefield's profile page

Dana Lee Baker is an associate professor at California State University Channel Islands, in Ventura County. She is the author of The Politics of Neurodiversity: Why Public Policy Matters, co-author of Neuroethics in Higher Education Policy (with Brandon Leonard), and editor of Disability and U.S. Politics: Participation, Policy, and Controversy. Laurie A. Drapela is an associate professor of criminal justice at Washington State University Vancouver. Her work appears in Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, Prison Journal, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Social Science Journal, Deviant Behavior, and Youth & Society. Whitney Littlefield is a juvenile probation counsellor at the Cowlitz County Youth Services Center in Longview, Washington. She previously served as a detention officer and in other capacities within the Washington State juvenile justice system and, in 2017, received the Cowlitz County Excellence in Service award for her work with youth and families.

Law and Neurodiversity is a well-researched, broad academic review of the current state of youth justice systems in Canada and the United States as they relate to autistic youth in conflict with the law.

Canadian Law Library Review

Law and Neurodiversity: Youth with Autism and the Juvenile Justice Systems in Canada and the United States provides a thorough and complete guide to better understanding the needs of juveniles and juveniles with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDDs) who engage in crime and deliquency... The authors also recognize the potential multidisciplinary audience for this book, and carefully define justice system and educational terms with which readers may be unfamiliar.

Canadian Law and Criminal Justice Books