(This column was published in the North Shore News on April 30, 2003)
New youth law typically too soft on hoods
By Leo Knight
EARLIER this month the Minister of Justice, Martin Cauchon, unveiled this country's new Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) to replace the Young Offenders Act.
After a quick read, the YCJA should stand for "You Can't Jail Adolescents." In real terms, this piece of legislation is just another bit of federal Liberal claptrap. The way the new law is written, young criminals cannot be jailed unless their crimes are violent. Cauchon and the rest of the woolly-headed thinkers in his party seem to think that teenaged criminals just need some social worker intervention to make everything OK.
While the legislation may be somewhat effective for those individuals who are just starting to fall afoul of the law, so was its predecessor and for that matter the old Juvenile Delinquents Act. It just doesn't seem to make any provision for the persistent repeat offenders who are likely drug-addicted, out of control and will steal anything that's not nailed down.
For those young individuals who are getting into their first brush with the forces of law and order, the new act legislates the ability of police to use discretion in the way the case is handled. Not that this is anything new, police have always had discretion in whether to pursue charges or "divert" the "child" to parental punishment.
Many of you may well remember the old style of diversion if you were caught shoplifting and the local beat cop took you home by the scruff of the neck. When he handed you over to your dad, he and you knew full well that your dad was going to give you a hiding.
So, under the new legislation, the police have the power to do exactly that. Boy, we've sure come a long way!
But for all of this, it really only deals with those young offenders (Geez, I hate that terminology) who are starting to stray from the straight and narrow. What of those repeat, habitual offenders?
Well, as I read the YCJA, they haven't been considered, as though the Liberals have blinders on to the existence of such an animal. But let me tell you, the animal does exist and in greater numbers than you might imagine.
For example, there's no recording system for youths who have been diverted previously, but have failed to comply with conditions. If a youth is arrested for stealing a car in Vancouver and gets diverted because non-violent offences are not considered for jail, and fails to meet the imposed and agreed upon conditions, when he is arrested the following week in North Vancouver, the RCMP haven't got a clue about the previous failure because there's no provision for the mandatory reporting of the situation.
Equally, there's no way for these types of diversions to actually enforce conditions upon the offender. Suppose a teen commits a non-violent offence - stealing a car, breaking a window or a residential break and enter - is caught, and agrees to take counselling and do some community work, then, a week later fails to comply, there is nothing, apparently, the system can do on that offence to force the situation.
The other thing the Liberal hand-wringers haven't considered is the availability of resources to deal with all those "non-violent" offenders. Take this analysis from a Toronto-area organization which deals with teens in trouble:
"We have never had to deal with numbers like this before," said Scott Davis, director of Second Chance, a Richmond Hill agency with mandate to help young offenders build employment and life skills.
Davis also worried about funding cuts to his and similar programs in the face of the increased numbers in the face of the new legislation.
"Every youth program I know about has been cut," he was quoted as saying in an interview with Yorkregion.com.
So, what are the federal Liberals trying to do? They bring in legislation aimed at keeping youths in trouble with the law away from the courts and into social programs designed at providing the types of support which will keep them out of trouble, and at the same time, they cut funding for those same programs.
Ontario parent Joe Wamback, whose son, Jonathan, was the victim of a severe beating by a group of "young offenders" and who can only walk with the aid of a brace as a result, has been a vocal critic of the new law. He says the YCJA is far too soft on young offenders and fails to recognize victims.
Earlier this month after the YCJA became law, he said, "The act is a joke, so it's fitting it was introduced on April Fool's Day.
"It sets victim's rights back 50 years, and tells young offenders that minor crime has no consequences. We're telling our youth that it's OK to break the law," said Wamback.
In the same manner as Jean Chretien's, Liberals have failed to protect the citizens of this country with the profoundly stupid application of conditional sentencing even for those with 40, 50, 60, 70 or 80 previous convictions; they have now allowed up and coming habitual criminals to walk away unscathed from those unfortunate occasions when they actually get caught driving your car or ransacking your home.
It's all so typical of the Chretien crowd isn't it?
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