TORIES SAY FIGHT CRIME BY TREATING ADDICTS

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.