SR Vol 27 No 3, July 2009 - Nova Scotia Barristers' Society

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