Law and Neurodiversity: Youth with Autism and the Juvenile Justice Systems in Canada and the United States

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. See more