SR Vol 27 No 3, July 2009 - Nova Scotia Barristers' Society
SR Vol 27 No 3, July 2009 - Nova Scotia Barristers' Society
SR Vol 27 No 3, July 2009 - Nova Scotia Barristers' Society
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You be<br />
the<br />
judge<br />
A<br />
:Youth crime in Halifax continues to frequent our<br />
headlines. Unfortunately, it seems that violent crime<br />
committed by youth is on the rise. Our city received<br />
national attention when a teenager in a stolen car<br />
attempted to escape the police, and ended up causing the death of<br />
an innocent woman by the name of Theresa McEvoy. Following the<br />
Nunn Commission of Inquiry, the federal government began to have<br />
talks across the nation with those who work in the area of youth<br />
crime. They also proposed certain amendments to the Youth Criminal<br />
Justice Act to address the inadequacies that they felt were important.<br />
The intention of the two proposed amendments that did not become<br />
law before the close of the 39th Parliament on September 7, 2008 were<br />
to broaden the possibility of pre-trial detention for a young person who<br />
represents a danger to the public or has previously failed to comply with<br />
conditions of release and to add the denunciation and the deterrence of<br />
unlawful conduct to the Act’s principles of sentencing.<br />
Though these amendments seem simple and perhaps even necessary,<br />
in my opinion they overlook the real issues with the youth criminal<br />
justice system. In <strong>No</strong>va <strong>Scotia</strong>, we still lack resources to assist the<br />
young people who get involved in crime. A great number of them<br />
are children in the care of the Department of Community Services<br />
(DCS) and/or those with serious mental health issues. This is not a<br />
new problem, and many workers in youth justice concur that there<br />
is too high a number of young persons from this vulnerable group.<br />
Wait times for counselling and mental health services still continue<br />
to be lengthy. Residential programs for those with severe issues are<br />
difficult to access and<br />
relatively impossible for<br />
children who are not in the<br />
care of the DCS and/or are<br />
16 years of age or older.<br />
Rickcola Slawter<br />
<strong>No</strong>va <strong>Scotia</strong> Legal Aid<br />
Youth Justice and Duty Counsel Office<br />
Recently, the media has been paying attention to a young person<br />
who is in the care of the DCS, who was also reportedly involved in<br />
the youth criminal justice system. This young person is now being<br />
sent to the United States for treatment, because the treatment that is<br />
necessary to assist this young person is not available in this jurisdiction.<br />
Unfortunately, this is not a rare occurrence. So often judges, lawyers<br />
and youth workers are faced with impossible situations for our youth,<br />
which the criminal justice system has no ability to address or rectify.<br />
The YCJA specifically states that pre-trial detention should not be<br />
used as an alternative for appropriate child protection, mental health<br />
or other social measures. Part of the reason that YCJA reserves custody<br />
for violent and repeat offenders is because Canada had such a high<br />
reliance on custody for youth. Amendments such as the ones suggested<br />
by the federal government would make it easier to jail the most<br />
vulnerable children in our society. The children who have no parents<br />
and live in group homes that they did not choose for themselves, or<br />
the ones with impulse problems and/or other serious mental health<br />
problems. These are the young people who are repeatedly arrested<br />
and often remanded. And until we acknowledge them, deal with<br />
them and truly help them, these types of amendments will just make<br />
it easier to institutionalize them.<br />
<strong>July</strong> <strong>2009</strong> 33