Exploring offending characteristics of young people with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in Western Australia

Abstract

Neurodevelopmental impairments resulting from Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) can increase the likelihood of justice system involvement. This study compared offence characteristics in young people with FASD to demographically matched controls (n = 500) in Western Australia. A novel approach (i.e. association rule mining) was adopted to uncover relationships between personal attributes and offence characteristics. For FASD participants (n = 100), file records were reviewed retrospectively. Mean age of the total sample was 15.60 years (range = 10–24), with 82% males and 88% Australian Aboriginal. After controlling for demographic factors, regression analyses showed FASD participants were more likely than controls to be charged with reckless driving (odds ratio, OR = 4.20), breach of bail/community orders (OR = 3.19), property damage (OR = 1.84), and disorderly behaviour (OR = 1.54). Overall, our findings suggest justice-involved individuals with FASD have unique offending profiles. These results have implications for sentencing, diversionary/crime prevention programs and interventions.

Key words:

• association rule mining
• diversionary programmes
• foetal alcohol spectrum disorder
• interventions
• justice system
• offending behaviour

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Research Acting Coordinator (Lester D’Cruze) and members (Luke Collins, Juanita Painter, Eamon Flanagan, and Wanita Bartholomeusz) of the Western Australia Police Force Operations Support and Aboriginal Affairs for their commitment and support to this important work. The authors thank members (Isabelle Adams, Frank Procter, Pat Oakley, and Richard Bonney) of our Aboriginal community reference group for providing direct input on the project in matters of community and cultural relevance. They thank Michael Stewart (Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Western Australia, UWA) for providing advice on data mining, Marty Firth (Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UWA), and Janis Nolde (School of Medicine, UWA) for the valuable statistical advice. The authors would also like to thank all Patches clinicians who assisted in the assessment of the participants of this study.

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Grace Kuen Yee Tan has declared no conflicts of interest

Carmela F. Pestell provided clinical services through Patches Australia between 2017 and 2019

James Fitzpatrick provided clinical services and is the chief executive officer of Patches Australia

Donna Cross has declared no conflicts of interest

Isabelle Adams has declared no conflicts of interest

Martyn Symons has declared no conflicts of interest

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Human Ethics Committee from the University of Western Australia, the Western Australian Aboriginal Health Ethics Committee (HREC Approval Number: 901), and the Research Governance Unit from the WA Police Force.

Informed consent

Informed consent/assent to participate in the current study was obtained from all individual participants (or their legal guardians) in the FASD group.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material is available via the ‘Supplementary’ tab on the article’s online page (https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2022.2059028).

Additional information

Funding

Donna Cross’s contributions to this paper were supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Research Fellowship (GNT 1119339). There was no external funding to support this research paper.