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Tories Say Fight Crime By Treating Addicts
By Hempology | May 10, 2007
Winnipeg Free Press
Want New Facility And Help For FASD Children More treatment beds for drug addicts and a plan to help kids with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder capped off “crime week” for the Tories Friday.
Leader Hugh McFadyen pledged to create 100 more spots in drug treatment centres for addicts, costing about $2 million.
And he promised more prevention programs, diagnostic services and support for people with FASD, which McFadyen said police say is a common denominator among young car thieves and criminals they arrest.
The FASD strategy will cost $4.8 million a year, money McFadyen plans to glean from booze sales. Two per cent of profits made by the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission will be earmarked for the FASD plan.
And the Tories plan to create a 20-bed, “youth intervention centre” to try and rehabilitate troubled kids without sending them to jail. They’d learn anger-management and life skills in what McFadyen stopped short of calling a minimum security centre. It would cost $1 million to build.
“This facility will provide the kind of structured, secure and supportive environment for young people in trouble with the law,” said McFadyen.
The pledge is the last of a batch of crime-related announcements that included more cops, more judges and more prosecutors. McFadyen said more details about the party’s plans to combat the root causes of crime would come later in the campaign.
FASD, a neurological disability caused when a mother drinks during pregnancy, was in the spotlight earlier this spring after a rash of car thefts and joyriding incidents, one of which left a Wellington Crescent jogger in hospital.
Soon after, the NDP pledged to spend $7.5 million to hire a dozen more FASD specialists, and Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard said a Liberal government would create a screening process for every newborn and spend more on school and social services to help FASD kids.
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