EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, April 22, 1996

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[English]

The Chair: Order. We're in session.

This morning I'd like to welcome, from the Government of Prince Edward Island, the Hon. Alan Buchanan, Minister of Provincial Affairs and Attorney General; and Phil Arbing, provincial adviser of correctional justice from the Health and Community Services Agency.

Our usual drill here is that we listen until you have nothing more to say, and then we ask questions, but in this case we have your presentation and we have an hour.

I'll let you allot your time accordingly, Minister. Welcome.

Hon. Alan Buchanan (Minister of Provincial Affairs and Attorney General, Government of Prince Edward Island): What I'd like to do, then, is go through some of the highlights of the presentation, at least. I won't do it all in detail, but perhaps I'll touch on the more relevant points. Then we can have a more broad-ranging discussion afterwards.

As you've noted, I've taken Philip Arbing with me this afternoon. Philip is our provincial adviser in corrections and criminal justice. He is with our Health and Community Services Agency, which has responsibility not only for the Young Offenders Act but also for adult corrections in the province and the probation system as well.

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While there are a number of provinces where, I understand, the social services system has responsibility for the Young Offenders Act, we are the only one that has responsibility for adult corrections within the health and social services system.

It's my intention to have Phil answer all of the tough questions today, so don't even bother looking in my direction when you have tough and technical questions to ask. Phil has been working in this area over a career that spans some 20 or 25 years. I'm sure he can handle all of the questions you might have.

First of all, Madam Chair, I want to thank you and the other members of the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation this morning as you review the youth justice system in Canada. We are certainly pleased that your committee is holding hearings right across the country and in the Atlantic region. I'm particularly pleased that you're in Charlottetown today on the first leg of your trip across the country. On behalf of the Government of Prince Edward Island, indeed the people of Prince Edward Island, I want to welcome you to our province.

I'm hopeful that your efforts to hold hearings right across the country will enhance the quality of the overall review and will ensure that the conclusions reflect a truly national picture. In this regard I think it's important that the experiences, views and concerns of small town and rural Canada be factored into the process.

As you know, we've provided your committee with some written comments and views in advance of this meeting and also in our October 17, 1995, letter to your committee. My comments today will highlight some of the points raised in that correspondence. For the most part they will be general, although it's recognized that the mandate of your committee is certainly very broad.

Obviously, how we respond to and deal with young people involved in criminal and delinquent behaviour in this country is a complex area of public policy. Of even greater complexity is the question of why young people engage in criminal behaviour and what factors in their lives and in our society contribute to this behaviour. I note this second area is also to be addressed in your work.

While it may seem obvious, I think it's important that we begin by acknowledging that the Criminal Code of Canada and the Young Offenders Act do not cause criminal or delinquent behaviour. Rather, they define unacceptable behaviour and set out how such behaviour will be dealt with once it has been determined that a formal societal response is required.

It appears discussions in the past two or three years concerning the Young Offenders Act have mainly been in the context of violent crime usually committed by older young offenders - if that's not a contradiction in terms. That narrow focus is unfortunate. I would suggest that the context should be the broader issue of violence in society and what we should and can do about it.

I would note that Prince Edward Island has just approved a provincial strategy on family violence prevention that includes various measures to deal with violence. Maybe we could share some of that information with you later on.

I think it's fair to say, as well, that discussions appear to have been unduly focused on what appears to be the weakness of the Young Offenders Act in the youth justice system. There's yet to be a serious examination of what are the good, the desirable and the effective aspects of the legislation in the system. Hopefully your committee work will be an effective forum for such examination and discussion.

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While concern about involvement of youth in violent crime is appreciated, the question of whether the existing legislation, even before recent Bill C-37 amendments, is effectively applied or administered in dealing with violent offences committed by youth remains to be answered. Unless the policy intent, philosophy, principles, provisions and flexibility of the current legislation are effectively applied in each case, to add even more restrictive measures to deal with a relatively small number of cases, although serious, may serve only to further frustrate the public and victim.

We must also be careful that we don't send a message to the effect that a more restrictive approach is the only way of dealing with young offenders. It seems to me that we already have sufficient legislation in the Young Offenders Act, the Criminal Code of Canada, and other related legislation to deal with youth crime.

To introduce further measures to deal with older or more serious offences may very well alter the philosophy, policy intent, and the principles underlying the Young Offenders Act. At its extreme, it could lead to a third type of criminal justice system for older youths. In the view of Prince Edward Island, this would be inefficient, costly, and not likely very effective from a programming or potential rehabilitation perspective, nor, I might add, is it likely to enhance public safety. I think instead we have to use the current provisions in the Young Offenders Act to transfer young offenders to the adult process in selective cases.

Hopefully, the recent changes to the transfer provisions, providing that 16- and 17-year-olds charged with serious offences be dealt with in adult court, unless the youth court can be satisfied otherwise, won't unnecessarily compound the administration of justice and simply add more costs to the courts, to crown counsel, and legal aid, through additional delays and hearings and reviews and even appeals.

It is important that the financial program and operational and administrative implications be actively considered in developing policy options and legislative proposals. I know I don't have to tell you that most of these implications fall on the provinces. If we do not consider these implications, our efforts to have a more effective and less costly youth justice system will be eroded.

We agree that the youth justice system must be effective and affordable. When the Young Offenders Act came into effect in 1984, Prince Edward Island did not have an organized approach or service in dealing with juvenile delinquency. Thus, with the new legislation, the province was faced with developing and implementing a province-wide continuum of services for young offenders, ranging from alternative measures and community options to secure custody. I understand that your committee is going to be travelling to Summerside later on to tour one of our youth facilities.

The various provisions of the Young Offenders Act have had significant program and cost implications for the province. One major area was the increase in the maximum age to include 16- and 17-year-olds. Indeed, the increase in age has seen many older youths, frequently well beyond 18 years of age, being served by young offender programs and facilities.

On the other hand, it appears that this older age group has been exposed to and hopefully has benefited from good quality programs that are not usually available in the adult system. Given that recent amendments focused on selected serious offences committed by 16- and 17-year-olds, we're satisfied that the current maximum age of under 18 years should be maintained.

In small jurisdictions such as Prince Edward Island, we're faced with providing a range of services, frequently at greater costs on a case or program basis. While we have tried to deal with that reality, cost implications have been significant. For that reason, it's important that federal support and cost-sharing be maintained. Indeed, we would argue that there should be additional resources from the federal level to allow innovative approaches. In that way, we can move towards a more balanced approach of prevention, community development, and integration with other youth and social services.

It is important then, with federal financial contributions for young offenders already decreasing, that additional legislative changes, particularly those without wide-scale support, not further compound our ability to provide effective programs and services. Over the past seven years or so, we've seen the federal financial contribution decrease from an intended 50% share to roughly 35% of our cost for programs of the community and custody nature.

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While we support changes in recent years in federal legislation to assist victims of crime, it appears there is a need to consider further changes to better serve and be more sensitive to victims. For example, the Young Offenders Act does not include the victim surcharge concept that exists in the Criminal Code process for adults. Most young offenders who proceed to court are older. Many are employed at least part time and are capable of paying. Where hardship arises, it could be waived by the court system, similar to current Criminal Code provisions. We propose that the victim surcharge concept be incorporated into the Young Offenders Act and youth justice system.

I would point out that young people charged with provincial offences in this province are required to pay a victim surcharge. And while we're on the topic, I believe the victim surcharge limitations under the Criminal Code should also be reviewed and adjusted upward.

In terms of custody programs, the Bill-37 amendments have addressed in part the operational difficulties of placement or movement between levels of custody. I would point out that additional flexibility facilitating temporary transfers between secure and open custody to support discharge planning, additional assessment, revised program plans, or other program needs would also be helpful. As well, an extension of time limits for temporary release from custody from the current 15 days to at least 30 days would be more consistent with programs of a treatment, educational, or other rehabilitative nature.

While there have been concerns raised in various parts of the country about the information-sharing and records provisions of the Young Offenders Act, we haven't had particular difficulty in this area. Our experience has been that with mutually developed protocols, information has been shared with educational, child welfare, mental health, adult correctional services, and other related services, as well as with victims. This has been in the context of case planning, assessing services, and so on. Such agreements have included provisions requiring consent to release or share information.

However, tracking information, once shared, and ensuring responsible use of the information for its intended purposes are both a concern and a challenge. While the recent amendments place additional emphasis on the declaration of the principle contained in the Young Offenders Act that calls for greater community involvement in crime prevention, it would appear that we must strengthen our leadership, collective efforts, and support for crime prevention in an overall government or national policy context.

Having said that, we fully appreciate and understand that the National Crime Prevention Council has already started work in this area, with a particular focus on children and youth. As a matter of information, the executive council in this province endorsed a long-term crime prevention and community safety strategy, which was announced in June 1995. In developing the strategy, the views and concerns of young people were considered, and obviously in developing activities, the needs of youth will be considered further. In addition, the province has approved a child and youth initiative, which will be the basis for developing and delivering services to children and youth.

I understand that your committee will hear a presentation on the provincial crime prevention and community safety strategy and meet with some of the members of the provincial advisory committee that will guide this strategy. I'll leave it to them to provide you with further detail on their programs and activities.

With government reorganization in this province and in particular reform in the areas of health, social, and community service, there is a concerted effort under way to integrate services for children, youth, and families. We want to put responsibility for service delivery as close as possible to the local or community level and focus on the needs of people who require services. The goal is to strengthen families, individuals, and communities. Community development, health promotion, and prevention are key elements of the reorganized system. This is consistent with the expectations that parents and families have a primary role and responsibility in addressing their needs and problems. This reinforces similar thinking underlying some of the principles in the Young Offenders Act. Many communities and public services, including the police, will be required to examine their responsibilities and operations in this new effort.

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The reorganized, integrated approach will assist in providing more alternatives for young people, both those charged with offences and those at risk of committing offences, with a view to earlier, more appropriate intervention and examination of placement options based on an assessment of needs and risks.

As well, this integrated approach will strengthen the response for the very few children under 12 years of age who become involved in serious misconduct. Thus, a lowering of the minimum age to less than the current 12 years should not be contemplated. In regard to the lower age group of 12 to 14 years, we need to pursue more or develop better community options of a less formal, non-criminal nature, focusing on support, guidance, and supervision.

Concerning alternatives to the youth court process, our experience to date with alternative measures has been a positive one. A recent evaluation of the alternative measures program, carried out in the province with the assistance of Justice Canada, has proposed some adjustments and supports greater use of alternative measures. This approach is indicated to be effective and efficient when compared with the formal process in dealing with similar cases.

In terms of alternatives to custody, upon a finding of guilt for less serious crimes in particular, the quantity and quality of information provided to the court to assist in sentencing are critical. Indeed, more resources should be available to pursue alternative placements, restitution, and community-service-type sentences, which are sensitive to victims' and public concerns. Again, federal resources of a transitional nature are required in introducing further program diversity and in moving towards community alternatives, recognizing of course that a basic level of custody-type programs is still required to deal with more serious offenders.

Increased inter-agency efforts, involving earlier intervention, assessment, and development of appropriate placement options, at both the pre-charge and pre-sentence stages, as well as at the discharge and follow-up stages, will be receiving more attention. This, however, will have resource implications as well.

Earlier, brief reference was made to the frustration of the public and victims. While we may have made a reasonable job of public legal education and information-sharing in the early years of the Young Offenders Act, it appears the efforts have not been consistent or sustained. As a result, there appears to be a fair degree of confusion as to what the Young Offenders Act is and what it can and can't do.

As well, opportunities to better inform the public, through the media, have been missed. Instead, media attention has focused on the special, unique, or unusual aspects of cases, without effective comments or appropriate information from the youth justice system itself. Thus it appears that a renewed public legal education and information strategy and campaign on a national level are required to enhance public understanding in regard to the Young Offenders Act and the youth justice system. Such a strategy should also focus on improving the understanding of those working in the system and their ability to respond to or assist with public understanding. Again, we see the federal government as having the lead responsibility for this in cooperation with the provinces and territories.

Last year, we conducted an extensive public opinion survey to better understand attitudes and perceptions of island residents regarding crime problems and the criminal justice system. Not surprisingly, given recent media attention, a number of concerns and issues identified youth crime and youth violence as being of concern.

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On a more positive note, the survey findings revealed a very high degree of support for crime prevention and law enforcement, and most encouragingly most respondents felt that the public was responsible for crime prevention. When asked if they were in charge of the justice system how they would spend the money, one-third of the respondents said they would spend it on youth programs, while one-quarter would spend it on programs for offenders. Another 25% would spend it on public information or education and roughly one-fifth would spend it on crime prevention, one-tenth on improving the court system, and another one-tenth in assisting victims.

The most important finding for our discussions today is that 75% of people surveyed indicated that they want additional information on the criminal justice system.

So you see this survey in P.E.I. supports the view that we have to do more in the area of public legal education. As noted earlier, we see the federal government leading and supporting a national public education effort. This must include meaningful discussions in participation with the provinces and the relevant community organization not only in its development but also in its implementation.

Certainly this province stands ready to share our experience not only in the area of young offenders and youth justice but also in other justice program areas and recent developments in the areas of health and social services. It's important that the experience of small, essentially rural jurisdictions such as Prince Edward Island be considered in the work of this parliamentary committee.

It's also important that we examine and share experiences on what is effective and what appears to work. I'm hopeful that the presentations later today will expand on some of the matters I discussed. I'm sure they will identify other significant concerns as we face the challenge of providing the best quality of life possible for our young people and at the same time provide an effective means to assist those who experience social or criminal problems.

I want to once again thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the review and I look forward, along with Mr. Arbing, to responding to any questions you might have arising from the presentation.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister.

Madame Venne.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne (Saint-Hubert): First of all, I would like to make a brief comment about the media. You say that a public education campaign is needed and I quite agree with you. However, I have the feeling that it would be pointless to undertake a major national education campaign of this nature if the media start blowing every minor incident totally out of proportion, as we see happen every time.

I would appreciate your opinion on this, but I have to say that my mind is already is pretty much made up as far as the media is concerned.

[English]

Mr. Buchanan: There's no way we can fully control the media, but I certainly believe that the Young Offenders Act has had a bum rap to some degree. A kind of hysteria has been created regarding crime in Canada, and I think particularly youth crime, and even though statistics tell us that crime is declining, when you turn on virtually any newscast you'll find that the lead four or five stories almost invariably are related to crime. I think that without attempting to carry out some educational program with the media, they are going to continue to feed on and continue to feed the hysteria and the fear that exists out there.

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[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: My next question is more of an observation. I see that you have proposed three amendments to the bill. The first concerns the mandatory fine or surcharge, the second calls for an extension of the time limits for temporary release from 15 to 30 days, and the third provides for more latitude in dealing with transfers between closed custody and open custody facilities.

These are the three concrete proposals that I noted in your brief. Personally, I get the feeling that aside from these three proposals, you seem to be more or less satisfied with the legislation.

[English]

Mr. Buchanan: Yes.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: These proposals are interesting, albeit minor. Therefore, you must be reasonably satisfied. Am I correct?

[English]

Mr. Buchanan: I think you're absolutely correct.

I don't think we should get caught up in a movement to change something that is essentially working fairly well. To use the old adage, we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water. I think there are adequate provisions within the Young Offenders Act to allow for the kinds of changes that we need to make to make it better.

I think that basically the philosophy and the principles on which the Young Offenders Act are based continue to be valid and sound. I can speak from experience that at previous ministers' conferences where I've had an opportunity to participate in discussions on the Young Offenders Act, the enthusiasm for changes to the act is almost directly related to each individual province's proximity to an election. I don't think that should be the basis for changes to any major piece of legislation, particularly one that deals with our young people.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: That's all for now, Madam Chair.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you gentlemen for being here this morning and presenting this particular brief to our committee.

I would like to ask a number of direct questions without too much lead-up comment.

You're against the reduction of the age limit from 12 to anything lower than that, I see in your brief. Are you against the publishing of names of repeat violent young offenders or removing the disclosure requirement that prevents the news media from publishing those names?

Mr. Buchanan: I haven't addressed that in the brief and it's not something I've given a lot of thought to.

I believe that the principle underlying the act should be one of rehabilitation, and I think we should give the greatest opportunity for rehabilitation that we can to our young people, even to those who have demonstrated they have an ongoing problem. There may be selected circumstances where that has to be done, but as a general rule I would think that confidentiality is still an important element of the act.

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I don't believe the publication of names is a deterrent to crime and I don't believe necessarily that any piece of legislation can be a deterrent to crime. When I was 14 and 15 years old, it wasn't the law I was frightened about. The prospect of disappointing my parents was the greatest deterrent to my involvement in any form of crime. I think that cannot be replaced by legislation in any way.

I think we have to recognize young people who are engaging in crime for what they are. For the most part, they are having difficulties in adjusting, perhaps they're involved in a dysfunctional family, or for some reason or other they haven't established the kind of value system that's needed. I think that's where we have to put our efforts. Simply punishing by publishing names and exposing them to public ridicule is in general terms not the most efficacious way to engage in rehabilitation.

Mr. Ramsay: That's a two-sided coin. The whole concept of revealing the identity of those who have displayed by their behaviour that they're capable of violent offences also provides the public with an awareness of those people within their community. On the one hand they may need help from the neighbour or from the group, and at the same time they are provided with the information that will allow them to take precautions to protect themselves from the young offender.

Now there has to be a balance between the consideration you have articulated and the greater one, in my submission and in my judgment, that would enhance the safety of the community. We have people who are repeat violent offenders and we don't know who they are within the community unless to a limited degree we hear it via the grapevine. In the more urban areas you may not know that someone living two houses down from you has been convicted more than once of a violent criminal offence.

You don't have the information to do one of two things or both of two things, which is to render whatever assistance you can to that family and to that individual while at the same time protecting your own children, your own family and your community, taking whatever safeguards you might to protect yourself against someone who's proven by his behaviour that he might be a threat to your property or your children.

Do you not see an imbalance in the continuation of the disclosure requirement that would prevent their names from being published in order to provide for those two considerations?

Mr. Buchanan: Again I guess we have to look at the principles on which the Young Offenders Act is based and at the philosophy that drove its creation. I still believe the principles and the philosophy are sound. I think there may be circumstances where disclosure is appropriate, but I wouldn't think that as a matter of rule the act should be amended to include a carte blanche disclosure in the instance of repeat violent crime.

I say that without having any kind of specific experience. The circumstances in Prince Edward Island where the situation you describe would occur would be very rare because of the size and the intimacy of the community and the fact we don't have that many violent young offenders who would be repeating as well. So it's not something I have given a great deal of thought to.

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I might ask Mr. Arbing to respond to it as well. He's more familiar with the specifics of statistics in the province.

Mr. Philip Arbing (Provincial Adviser, Corrections and Criminal Justice, Health and Community Services Agency, Prince Edward Island): Thank you. I have just two comments, one of which would be to reflect on your comment as to the nature of the community and who may be living where.

Also, it would appear that in the recent amendments, particularly those dealing with serious offenders who are 16 or 17 years of age, the presumption to transfer them to adult court would satisfy, in part, your concerns. Our experience here is that in the 10 years we've had three charged with homicide, all of whom ended up being dealt with in youth court when all of the discussions, applications and considerations were made.

The requirement put into the act last year of sharing information with related services seems to be more one of urgency, if you like, or an expectation of related services dealing with young people.

We had one situation in the province a couple of years ago where three young people were involved in the robbery of a taxi driver. The taxi companies felt very strongly that the identity of these three young people should subsequently be revealed. It turned out they were dealt with in youth court as well.

So the balance the minister speaks about seems to be in the predominance that the exception can be met, in part, with the transfer provisions, with the disclosure provisions and with the sharing of information provisions.

Mr. Ramsay: I would gather then that the continued restriction of the public's knowledge of who is committing dangerous and violent offences within their community is still the way to go. The benefit to the offender would continue to outweigh the benefit that might accrue not only to the offender, through people who've become aware and wish to help or at least offer assistance and the kind of support these young people need, but also to the public, through the safety factor of the public being aware of a danger and being able to take whatever proper measures they could in order to protect themselves against those acts. That's my understanding of your position on this issue.

Mr. Buchanan: As a general rule, yes, I believe the principles of the act should prevail and that we should err in favour of the youth. There may be extenuating circumstances in individual cases where it may be appropriate. But as a general rule I feel disclosure would be inappropriate in the rehabilitation of youth. If there's one way we can ensure our young offenders become old offenders, I think it's by exposing them as much as possible to the adult system and to the kind of approaches to punishment we have traditionally used in the adult system.

Mr. Ramsay: My time is up. I'll come back.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Gallaway.

Mr. Gallaway (Sarnia - Lambton): Thank you for a very interesting presentation. Madam Venne has cited the three technical amendments, if I can refer to them as such, that you proposed. But I think I'm hearing that basically if it's not broken, don't fix it.

I have only a couple of questions. You've given us a very good general overview. As you are aware, we have been hearing witnesses in Ottawa. We're now hearing witnesses who are not only talking about what I would refer to as the top end, being those people in the 16- and 17-year range, but also about the lower end, the 12-year range. These people want to push down the age at which people will come into the system. Can you envision any benefits from bringing an 11-year-old into the criminal justice system?

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Mr. Buchanan: I can't imagine a circumstance where an 11-year-old should be dealt with in the criminal justice system in that way. I recognize that there are very rare occasions when children of that age act out in a manner that goes beyond mere unacceptance, but clearly that is a problem that requires a different kind of response from the kind of response we can provide through the criminal justice system.

Mr. Gallaway: I'd like to address the same question to Mr. Arbing.

In your time, in your position, have you encountered anyone less than 12 years old to whom you think the criminal justice system should have been applied?

Mr. Arbing: We've had very few. I can think of one where it was considered really very serious. It was resolved through child welfare and mental health services.

We looked at this as part of a national review of the services available for under-12-year-olds a number of years ago. In Prince Edward Island we talked with police and there were some concerns. When we went further and pushed it a little bit and asked what kind of concerns, we heard that, well, young people were hanging out at shopping malls. In one case, it was very vividly explained that they were around the harbour on ice floes and those types of things, causing a nuisance. But they were not the kinds of things that would be criminal if in fact the law applied to under-12-year-olds.

What we had done in the province in 1984-85 was to amend our child welfare legislation, putting in a provision very clearly that police could intervene in the lives of young people under the age of 12 if they were involved in behaviour that would be considered criminal if they were over age 12, and to take certain measures, whether it was to intervene and return them home or to refer them to child welfare officials for investigation, intervention and supervision or whatever. Again, I am not aware that it's been used particularly often.

The minister made reference to work that's going on now in Prince Edward Island to make a more concerted effort to integrate services, particularly of a health, community and social services nature, with a focus on children and youth. Hopefully when we get further along in the application of that thinking we'll have even less need.

We had hoped that even with 12- and 13-year-olds perhaps we should be using more of a child welfare orientation in responding to alleged crime on their part, particularly by way of alternative measures. But statistically, it would be very small here over the 10 years.

Mr. Gallaway: I have one other question for you, Minister. For those of us who work in the political realm, in certain quarters in this country there's a belief that young people are generally more violent, more prone to crime, that generally speaking there is more criminal activity amongst young people than there was at some point in the past.

From the perspective of your province, are you hearing that from your constituents? Are you hearing that as a provincial politician?

Mr. Buchanan: I made reference earlier to the public opinion survey we did in the province. Certainly there was some expression of that, but interestingly, I think, when we looked at where prevention had to be done, where we needed programs - people were asked to allocate resources - there was less allocation of resources to the young offenders programs.

Whether that indicates it's perhaps more of an anecdotal problem than a real problem, I don't know. But I think it's certainly true that there is, as I mentioned earlier, a kind of hysteria that exists in the country. I think that's why your committee is so important. That's why it's important that you, as legislators, be extremely brave in the way in which you deal with this issue and that you not simply be caught up yourselves in this frenzy and concern about crime, that you examine the best way to deal with crime.

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In relation to your earlier question about lowering the age, I would like to just say something in addition to what I've already said and to what Mr. Arbing has said. I don't believe for a moment that an 11-year-old just wakes up some Monday morning and decides to go and act out. There has been a pattern developed over a period of time. I think it's our responsibility as legislators and people who are involved in delivering social and educational services to identify those children and deal with those problems before they manifest themselves in criminal activity.

Mr. Gallaway: Mr. Arbing, is there any statistical evidence on Prince Edward Island that would indicate there's been an increase in violent crime, especially in the upper end of the young offenders age category?

Mr. Arbing: This would be a general response. Over the last three or four years in Prince Edward Island the crime rate generally has been going down in most areas, particularly crime related to property. This is right off the crimes reported to and by the police.

There has been a slight increase in violent or personal injury crime. This is believed, in part, to be a result of a fair emphasis here on intervening in family violence and sexual abuse cases. Indeed, we have sexual abuse cases coming forth now that are maybe 10, 15 or 25 years old.

As they relate to the young offenders group, I couldn't answer that right today. We could undertake to do some digging on that or maybe work with the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. They may be able to answer that. We don't have indicators that there is an increase, but statistically I can't say.

The Chair: Mr. Kirkby, please.

Mr. Kirkby (Prince Albert - Churchill River): You indicate in your brief that you'd like to adopt more innovative approaches or gain a more balanced approach for prevention, community development and integration with other youth and social services and alternatives with the traditional components of the youth justice system.

Do you think that at present, because of the lack of resources, you're relying too much on incarceration, fines, and that type of thing? Would you like to move into other areas of treatment?

Mr. Buchanan: Certainly I think resources are always a problem. We can see an endless need for resources.

We've been fortunate in Prince Edward Island again perhaps because of the infancy of the problem, the size of the problem, the manageability of our public service, the fact that we have been able to break down many of the institutional and departmental boundaries that normally impede movement between one department and another.

The changes we've made, for example, in moving responsibility for corrections and probation services to the health and community services system is a positive one and one that will pay off for us down the road.

We've found, for example - and certainly it's no surprise - that the vast majority of people who are occupying our correctional facilities, both young offender and adult facilities, were there because of social or educational reasons. They have learning disabilities, or they have addiction problems, or they came from a dysfunctional family, or they were unable to deal with anger. They saw violence as the only way of resolving problems.

All of these, we determined, were social problems, not justice problems. If we were going to deal with them in some way, then we had to give responsibility to the justice system.

In addition to that, making the kinds of institutional changes that were required, as Mr. Arbing has noted, we have undertaken some other interdepartmental activities focused on youth working with the child welfare system and the education system to attempt to address problems before they become problems. From a policy and planning point of view, it's difficult to predict what kind of effect this will have.

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I'll add that from a political point of view, it's extremely difficult to sell the concept as an appropriate one. It's much easier to take the approach of just punishing, increasing sentences, moving the age down, or moving to adult court on a quicker basis.

From a political point of view, it's much easier to do that than to say we have a long-term strategy here that over a period of time - not within the mandate of this government perhaps, but over a period of time.... Unfortunately to us as politicians, long term is four years. When we're dealing with youth crime and with young people, we have to look beyond that and well down the road. Indeed our investment may take some time to pay off, but we believe that eventually it will.

The Chair: Mr. Kirkby, I'm sorry, that's the end of that round, and we're just about finished with our time.

But I wonder, Minister, if I might ask you to provide us with three things. The first two things are mentioned in your brief. The first is an evaluation that was done of the alternative measures programs on the island.

We have it already? There's one; you do good work.

The second is your public opinion survey concerning crime.

Mr. Buchanan: That's contained in the document entitled.... No, we have just the results of the -

The Chair: Thanks, that would be great.

And if we could get a copy of your child welfare legislation, particularly the sections that allow police to intervene with youngsters, that would be quite helpful.

Mr. Buchanan: Sure. Mr. Arbing doesn't have that with him. We'll provide it later today.

One other item, I believe, that we have taken with us is the crime prevention strategy.

The Chair: Okay, thank you very much. That was very helpful. Thank you, Minister andMr. Arbing.

Mr. Buchanan: Thank you.

The Chair: We'll take about five minutes while our next witnesses pull themselves together.

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.0839

The Chair: I want to welcome Irene Dawson, Diane Barnes, Frances Pickle andGiselle Gallant-Bernard from the Provincial Advisory Council on Crime Prevention and Community Safety. Welcome.

We have an hour and a half in total, give or take a few minutes at either end, to allow us to do a transition to witnesses.

We have your brief, and I welcome you to make your presentations. Members would like to ask you some questions at the end.

Ms Diane Barnes (Representative, Provincial Advisory Council on Crime Prevention and Community Safety): Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chairperson and committee members. Welcome to Prince Edward Island.

We're very honoured to have this opportunity to make a presentation to this committee on the important issue of youth offending and the youth justice system.

My name is Diane Barnes and I'm the coordinator of the justice resource service. I am currently responsible for implementing this provincial plan on safer communities across Prince Edward Island. We call our plan of action, Crime Beat P.E.I.

.0840

Four members of the committee are with me this morning. One person, Jeanette Gallant, is replacing Giselle Gallant-Bernard from Jeunesse Acadienne. Giselle was unable to make it this morning and sends her regrets.

Ms Irene Dawson is the chair of our committee, and she represents the Federation of Prince Edward Island Municipalities.

Ms Francis Pickle is a member of the committee and represents the police community consultative groups across the island, which are provincial organizations. More specifically, she's the past president and current member of the West Prince Crime Prevention Association, one of our most active crime prevention groups in the province. Caroline Landry is also from that group.

I'll begin the presentation just by briefly describing Crime Beat P.E.I. Following this,Ms Pickle, Ms Gallant and then Ms Dawson will speak.

I'd like you to keep in mind that Crime Beat is a relatively recent initiative. This advisory committee came together for the first time last November and has only met twice since that time.

The presentations will be made primarily from the perspective of the individual organizations the women represent, but you will recognize some common themes emerging from the presentations, which is a little surprising perhaps.

When we started out tackling complex issues, such as youth offending and the youth justice system, we were quite surprised at the degree of consensus that we did have amongst our various groups.

As mentioned before, Crime Beat is a plan of action on how to prevent crime and develop safer communities across the island. It's the result of the growing recognition of community safety as a priority concern as well as a health issue. Although P.E.I. remains a relatively safe place to live in Canada, it appears that many islanders sometimes feel unsafe in their communities. This undercurrent of feeling was expressed in a series of consultations, interviews and questionnaires, which involved nearly 400 islanders.

While islanders weren't always able to define exactly what it is that makes the island a special place to live, they could describe the type of things they felt were destroying the security of their island homes, things like the breakdown of the values of respect for self, others and property; being afraid to go out alone; the fear of being robbed, mugged or assaulted; family violence and general violence in society; not knowing your neighbours; the fear of strangers; the fear of being persecuted for being different; alcohol abuse; drinking and driving; youth feeling hopeless; and the stress and pressures of an uncertain future, especially because of the lack of employment.

This type of insight indicated to us that islanders recognized some of the underlying causes of crime and were ready to take a preventive approach to preventing it, an approach that focuses on long-term solutions, relies on community involvement and directly defining the problems, coming up with the solutions, and implementing and evaluating the programs that increase safety and reduce fear.

Crime Beat seeks to promote and support community participation and crime prevention by providing a framework of support, which includes access to information, education, training and resources. We're organizing to support communities working together with various levels of government and different organizations to prevent crime.

The primary components of the strategy include a public education program, which we're currently involved in, and a skills-building program, which we will shortly embark on. We want to ensure that islanders have an accurate picture of crime in P.E.I. and a broad understanding of the issues, and that they'll be equipped with the skills to turn the knowledge into action.

As part of the public education program, we are currently working on a television series that talks to and with islanders about crime in P.E.I. I believe you have the yellow copy. It's the Crime Beat television show. We hope to talk to islanders about the facts, the myths, the justice system, the issues, the causes of crime, preventing crime, and tips on keeping safe.

This is what we hoped would be achieved as a result of Crime Beat P.E.I.: increased public participation in community crime prevention or in crime prevention in general, and crime prevention involving a collaborative problem-solving approach dealing with the root causes of crime.

As this necessitates a high degree of community involvement in this type of approach, we would hope that the public would increasingly play a more meaningful role within the administration of the criminal justice system. Ultimately we're trying to achieve freedom from fear of victimization, and safer communities across Prince Edward Island.

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Thank you.

Ms Frances Pickle (Representative, Provincial Advisory Council on Crime Prevention and Community Safety): Good morning, Madam Chairman and members. Welcome to P.E.I.

I don't know if you got this brochure. Was it handed out? Okay.

It serves a two-fold purpose: to advertise in print, and to show you the area I'm talking about, mainly West Prince. If you open the brochure, you can see a little map. We live as far west as you can get, the Mill River area. That's the area I'm talking about.

So I live in a small community, as far west as you can go in P.E.I. Five years ago I began to become really concerned with the speed of traffic and the manner in which young people were driving in my area.

I have a sister from Boston who usually spends her summer with me, and she used to always tell me that she felt it was more safe for her children in the busy city of Boston than it was where I lived on P.E.I. At least, she said, there they have to stop for traffic lights.

I had another relative from New Brunswick who was visiting with us. We were sitting out on the patio one night, and after he watched the cars pass by with tremendous speed, he said, my neighbours wouldn't put up with that in my community.

I worried a lot about my children and all the kids in the neighbourhood, that something was going to happen to one of them because of the dangerous driving on our street. I guess this is when I started to get an interest in crime prevention. I couldn't sit back and watch things go on without doing something.

So as it ended up, a group of us in West Prince formed a crime prevention group, which came out of a consultative group that had been going on for probably five or six years. This was the first crime prevention group in West Prince.

Now, the suggestions I'm giving today about crime prevention - and some suggestions are for the youth justice system - come mainly from West Prince, and I have gathered these from some professional people. Some people work with the justice system, some are school counsellors, and most are concerned citizens.

The suggestions are as follows: first, if youth go to court, make it obligatory for the parents to take a teen parenting course. Young offenders can get help, but if they go back into the same atmosphere, we are defeating our purpose.

Second, we need more community youth workers to counsel these young people. We have one in all of West Prince.

Third, we need a youth addiction counsellor. Young people with substance abuse have different counselling needs from adults. Some recent statistics done in West Prince show 80% of offenders have suffered substance abuse.

Fourth, we need more life skills taught in the school as part of the curriculum.

Fifth, young people in West Prince believe it is okay to drink before age 19. We need more education in the schools in this area and stricter control over the accessibility of alcohol to youth.

Sixth, young offenders should not be named in newspapers during or after their court case. This is not being done now. There is talk that it may be done, and it was suggested that we should not do this.

Seventh, we feel a judge trained especially to deal with young offenders would speed up the court process and give more uniformity to sentencing.

Eighth, if young offenders 16 and up do not pay fines, their driver's licence should be suspended, and those younger must also face a consequence if fines are not paid.

Ninth, parents and communities must take more responsibility for their youth.

Tenth, teachers must be given some counselling skills while being educated, and in-service training must be made available for those already in the system.

Now, I have another page with more suggestions. There are some points of concern.

The first one is to ask why young offenders should be issued Liquor Control Act tickets if the courts won't issue warrants for non-payment of the fines.

Second, if a young offender is arrested and the parents neglect to assist, they should be held accountable to some degree. If parents knew they would be responsible civilly, then maybe they could have more control.

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Third, the community service work should be in a form that will not only deter but also create an awareness for others in the community. If they cause damage to someone's property, they should have to repair it.

Fourth, the young offenders' rights at the age of 16 should be similar to those of adults, depending on their mental capacity and the nature of the offence.

Fifth, amendments should be made to the Young Offenders Act, the criminal justice system and the provincial Family and Child Services Act so one can step in when the other has no effect. For example, youth who continue to have problems with substance abuse can be placed on a probationary order of some type without being brought before the criminal courts. This order could offer mandatory treatment and also include the family to ensure proper support is given, as the family should have some responsibility depending on each individual case.

Sixth, implement an alternative measures program for youth who have been in trouble, without having to go through the court process and tying up the police and crown prosecutors. Instead, have it done at the family court level.

Seventh, the Family and Child Services Act or the Young Offenders Act should have legislation in effect whereby the school system must play a part in the detention and prevention in the case of substance abuse or any behavioural problem.

As happens with child abuse, if a teacher detects symptoms of abuse, then it should immediately be addressed, and reporting should be mandatory. The school counsellor and/or child and family service worker should approach the student, discuss the issue, and involve the family. Support should be given to help remedy the problem. Each case would be monitored, and if there is no evidence of progress, the family court should be called upon to impose an order similar to probation whereby treatment is made mandatory, and the student can receive the help they need before it's too late.

Eighth, existing programs, such as AA, Al-Anon, and others that address these problems should be extended to everyone, not only those immediately affected. Maybe the school system, in conjunction with child and family services, could offer programs within the schools to show the students who may not have problems now but may have them down the road exactly what's involved. Prevention is the best cure.

I thank you for listening, and I hope that these will be of interest to you. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Are there any other direct presentations?

Ms Gallant.

[Translation]

Ms Jeannette Gallant (Provincial Advisory Council on Crime Prevention and Community Safety): Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I am here representing Jeunesse acadienne on behalf of Giselle Gallant. I would like to speak to you about our organization which works with young people in the area of crime prevention.

Jeunesse Acadienne is a provincial association founded in 1976 to bring together young Acadians and young francophones in Prince Edward Island.

Its mission is to give young people an opportunity to live in French. The association also works to promote Acadian and francophone identities, to assist in the development of French language activities, to help young people become responsible citizens and to promote and develop communication methods geared to youth.

Let me list for you some of our standard rules. We often organize weekend or one-day activities. All young participants are quite familiar with our rules since the first thing they receive is a copy of them. Possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages and drugs are prohibited, as is cohabitation. They must respect other people and their property and they must speak French since the purpose of these activities is to promote the use of the French language.

Jeunesse acadienne organizes numerous activities related to crime prevention. People are invited to come and share their experiences with us over the course of the weekend. For example, one man came to talk about the time he spent in prison. Youths were also taken on a tour of the facility for young offenders in Summerside to get a firsthand view of life in prison and to see for themselves the consequences of transgressing the law. We feel it is important for young people to gain hands-on experience in order to understand what they must not do.

.0855

This past weekend, Jeunesse acadienne held its annual meeting the main focus of which was the anti-smoking movement. A number of guest speakers were invited to attend. Young people were given a few minutes' preparation time before having to debate both sides of the issue. It was extremely interesting to see them organize themselves. At the end of the day, they made a number of posters and again, the results were very interesting.

I would now like to talk to you briefly about the way in which Jeunesse acadienne emphasizes non-criminal activities. I went shopping with a group of young people and we went into four different stores to see if young people under the age of 19 could buy cigarettes. One store in four sold them cigarettes. During this exercise, we discussed with the participants what they should do when they come across stores that violate the law and sell cigarettes to youths under 19 years of age. That same day, we invited a police officer to meet with our group to discuss what they should do under these circumstances and this meeting led to an exchange of ideas among group members.

Different opinions were voiced, but the group finally decided to send a letter to the offending stores. There was some concern that the group might acquire a bad reputation by reporting such incidents and that young people could be discouraged from joining the organization. The group nevertheless decided to send the letter to the stores that had sold them the cigarettes.

We try and make young people take some responsibility for their actions by giving them a glimpse of what is going on around them in an effort to help them lead healthier lives.

Jeunesse acadienne has also organized plays with the group SADD, which everyone is familiar with, to stress the fact that drinking and driving do not mix. Our groups are quite active in the francophone community. We want to help our youth take responsibility for their actions and to make the world in which they live a better place.

I believe Giselle also wanted me to say that we must not victimize our young people. We are always talking about young people who do bad things whereas we should instead be focusing on those who are kind and who participate in activities to promote responsibility. We should focus on the positive achievements to change the negative image people often have of youth.

Thank you very much for your time.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Are there any further presentations?

Ms Irene Dawson (Chair, Provincial Advisory Council on Crime Prevention and Community Safety): Greetings, Madam Chair.

Crime must be prevented before it happens, said Émile Thérien, president of the Canada Safety Council. Crimes of opportunity can be reduced by taking security measures, he said, but in the long term we must target the root causes of crime such as family violence, neglect, illiteracy, inadequate life skills and the culture of crime.

While there is no simple solution, risk factors can be identified, and the challenge for the community is to get everyone involved.

What is a valid approach? Basic, understandable, desirable, effective, not financially straining, and long term and self-sustaining. Perhaps most importantly, it places the responsibility for behaviour directly where it belongs: in the beginning, at the roots.

As I read from the mandate of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for the comprehensive review of the youth justice system, the committee would examine the following issues, among others, in relation to youth crime: first, the nature and determinants of youth property and personal injury crime, school violence and youth gangs; second, direct and indirect community impacts on the social costs of youth crime; third, youth crime prevention measures; fourth, deterrents to youth crime; fifth, family responsibility for youth crime; sixth, adult and youth knowledge and opinion about young offending, the youth justice system and the Young Offenders Act; and seventh, risks and needs of young people under 12 years of age engaged in offending behaviour.

.0900

I am concerned to see that family responsibility for youth crime is listed under the fifth issue and adult and youth knowledge and opinion, etc., is placed in the sixth spot on a list of seven issues. Realizing that perhaps the order in which these issues are presented have no special meaning, I want us to see that until united we put the word ``family'', the concept of family, and the involvement of family first on any list, we are falling far short of any kind of justice, legislated or otherwise.

If you will, my favourite line when being told of youth disrespect, youth crime, and youth violence, is simply this: you show me one rotten kid and somewhere I'll show you two rotten parents. Artificial insemination wasn't around in my time.

It is perceived to be a youth crime problem. Then what are we doing about it? Back to the roots.

We are told the youth have no place to go. Back to the roots.

We are told that our schools should provide and teach real-life information. Back to the roots.

We are told that high school participants called for increased parental supervision with a good home environment. Back to the roots.

We are told that family education centres and both inside and outreach programming are needed. Back to the roots.

Then we are also told - a must - parenting skills programs for young, first-time parents.... Roots?

Just who told us all of this? Was this the same youth whom this comprehensive review is all about, the same youth who causes all our troubles? Why then is it so difficult to begin to implement programs in schools, communities and provinces? Because we tend to forget that in the beginning the roots were not properly tended.

The first step we must take is to verbally, if not literally, add a great, big word to something, and that is, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms - and responsibilities. It is understood, remember, that with every right and freedom comes that responsibility. But remember that what we, each of us, visually see usually has the longest memory and certainly presents the clearest picture.

I feel that so much time and effort in connection with youth justice, related issues, etc., could produce much stronger and more favourable results if the family was the centre of attention. Often it seems as though this child just landed or something from somewhere by the age of 7, 9, 12 or so, decided to attach itself to a family, and then the problems started.

Well, guess what? Until we come to a point where the family and the children of that family - the roots - are of primary concern, we will long struggle with youth justice and the YOA. Until we hold the parents, the producers of the problem, responsible, we will long struggle. Until we come together as a community family, working together, teaching together and caring together, we will long struggle.

Put the law courses in schools, in elementary, junior, and high schools. Put directives in place to teach parents, or other measures that may be necessary, including intervention and child removal. Put emphasis on early birth education to 7-, 9- and 12-year-olds. Put the responsibility back on the parents.

Then and only then will we see improvements in lifestyles and life values, and the cycle will start to break. Tinkering with legislation is not an answer or a solution; it's a costly and usually ineffective measure.

Lastly, teach the law professionals - the lawyers, the judges, etc. - how to administer the law. The strength of the law, and especially the Young Offenders Act, is in its administration.

Let me conclude by quoting from an article in the CPA's fall 1995 voice of the police, the Express, entitled ``Portrait of a shattered community'', commenting on the recent two murders in Beaconsfield:

``No matter how many words you put in the act or how many commas you change, it would not have prevented this crime,''....

...it is up to the parents and the school system to make sure such crimes do not reoccur.

I thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

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We'll have a 10-minute round, starting with Madame Venne.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: First of all, I note, and this must be obvious to everyone, that the five of you are women. Should we take this to mean that men are not involved in crime prevention in Prince Edward Island?

[English]

Ms Barnes: No, it doesn't mean that. On our advisory group we do have some male members. They just weren't able to be here today. Each of the respective organizations also have men involved.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: I had my doubts, but I wanted to hear you say it because I was surprised to see five women together.

I would like to discuss parental responsibility, a subject mentioned on two occasions in your presentations. First of all, do you all agree with the principle of having parents assume more responsibility because, in my view, I think they already are responsible. What concrete steps would you take to make them more responsible? Could you give me some examples? I'm also wondering if by shifting all or part of the burden of responsibility onto the shoulders of parents, we will be making young people less responsible for their actions in the process. That's my first question.

Ms Gallant: I will start by giving you one example in a school setting. A teacher wants to show a young person that his actions have consequences and in order to do so, he needs the parent's help but that support is not forthcoming. Parents must be made to accept more responsibility in this area.

Mrs. Venne: Does this mean that you would consider holding parents civilly accountable for their child's behaviour? How about criminally accountable?

Ms Gallant: We cannot bring any action against parents. We have to comment on the situation, try and get the parents' support, make announcements and attempt to make them responsible. In dealing with a situation at school, we try to see the parents, to discuss the matter with them and to determine if the student has any special problems.

Mrs. Venne: I would also like the two witnesses who mentioned this point in their briefs to answer my question so that we know how best to go about making parents more responsible.

[English]

Ms Pickle: I spoke to a youth counsellor in West Prince last week. He felt that the parents of any youth who was in trouble, or probably on the verge of getting in trouble, should get into a parenting course. I thought that would be a beginning.

I have a boy who is 15, and three or four kids usually hang at my house. They come at 9 a.m. and are there until 10 p.m. No one phones to see where they are or what they are doing.

I think parents have to take responsibility in that area. I know a lot of them are single parents, or there are problems in the home, but I still don't believe that compensates for letting your children come and go wherever and whenever they please. A lot of parents don't know how to discipline or how to guide their children. This is why I think they have to be educated in that area.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: If I have understood you correctly, making parents more responsible means getting them more involved and making them aware of their responsibilities, not holding them civilly or criminally accountable, as certain other groups have suggested.

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[English]

Ms Pickle: That's right. I don't think the court system for most children is the answer. When I spoke to that youth counsellor, he saw such good in our youth that I could never see that the court system was the answer unless it was something really serious.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: Thank you. Are you of the same opinion, Ms Dawson?

[English]

Ms Dawson: My feeling on it is that if we are looking at and talking about involving the parents by the time the youth approaches court, we've missed the point of parental responsibility. This child does not land out of somewhere and like some kind of leech or something clamp itself onto a family at 12 years of age. The parent takes this infant home from the hospital. Until we start intervention and crime prevention from birth to age 9, by the time the child is 15 it's a little late to take the parent to court on the issue.

I think we have to have community involvement from the beginning. If it's a family at risk.... Everybody knows if their next-door neighbour is a risk family. Maybe not ``everybody'' knows, but by and large there are always indicating factors there. I think those factors have to be looked at and addressed.

There's family involvement. Parents, come and bring your children. We're presently starting a program involving youth in our community. One of the things some of our at-risk youths wanted was a night activity. They don't have the best home life, perhaps, and they don't want to be home at 10 p.m. watching a movie. In a lot of cases there's violence involved. So we came up with an idea to have a midnight basketball game. The admission to this is that a parent has to bring them. We will accept them from the age of about 9 or 10 up. We haven't established that yet.

But that's the sort of thing I mean, to involve the parents from the beginning, because it's too late later on.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: Does Prince Edward Island have a problem with youth gangs? I'm talking about the kind of organized criminal youth gangs prevalent in certain large urban centres in other provinces.

[English]

Ms Barnes: Not that I'm aware of. If any of the other members are aware of them from their areas....

Ms Pickle: In our community we were talking about that last week. I learned a lot last week, doing all this. They said in a certain way we don't have them, but in another way we do. We have areas where a group of teenagers will get together and go into another area and try to fight with members from that area. That has happened off and on in West Prince. It's not prevalent, but apparently it did happen about two weeks ago. I know it has happened at different times, but it's not a big problem.

Ms Dawson: I would like to respond and say, yes, we do have youth gangs. We've had them for 25 years. We have school gang clashes. I think there's a covering up factor behind this because of our geographic structure, because of our population numbers. When we talk gangs, we're talking maybe 12 to 20 kids. When Montreal talks gangs, they're talking 200 kids. When Fredericton, New Brunswick, talks gangs, they're talking 300 kids. Yes, we have the problem. It's just not magnified.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: My final question concerns the notorious statistics that we all have here in front of us. Some researchers have concluded that violent crime has increased and become more random and serious in recent years. Other statistics show and others are of the view that the community has become less tolerant of young people in particular and that consequently, more reports of minor assaults are made to police, resulting in an increase in arrest statistics. I would be interested in getting your comments on this.

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Is the community indeed becoming intolerant of young people and are these statistics reliable?

Ms Gallant: Has society become intolerant or is it that the community no longer has the time to deal with the problem? Things have really changed in recent years. In most cases, both parents work and are not at home when children return from school. We need to ask ourselves if the problem is due to the fact that society does not have the time, does not take the time or is intolerant. That's a question that I ask myself as well as a parent.

Mrs. Venne: Do you all share the same opinion? It would seem so. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Madame Venne.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Ramsay: I want to thank you all for being here. I hear an awful lot of common sense coming from you and it's the kind of common sense that I think we as members of Parliament hear all across the country when we take the time to talk to people who are concerned about crime.

I think we all know that the justice system cannot deal with dysfunctional families. The justice system's traditional role is to protect society from those who will not or do not see a vested interest in obeying the law, either within the home or on the street, in the school, or whatever.

I spent 14 years in the RCMP. We enforced the old Juvenile Delinquents Act and we had the authority under the Juvenile Delinquents Act and the Criminal Code to deal with any child as young as 7 or 8 years of age who was committing a criminal offence. Our peace officers do not have that authority now - or our justice system does not have that authority now. We see in some areas where the 10-year-olds and 11-year-olds are being used by the older ones to get involved in crime, because they know that the police and the justice system cannot deal with them. We see where they feel secure in the fact that they know that even though they commit a violent offence over and over again, they're immune from having their names published in the papers.

I have some concerns in those areas, and although you, Madam, made reference to the fact that you didn't think their names should be published, I think we have to...and I don't think they should be published either, except when it is in the interest of public safety. How can I discourage my children from associating with juveniles who are in drug trafficking and will draw my children into that? How I can do this if I don't know who they are and if the law prevents the newspapers from printing that information and providing this information for me?

So as members of Parliament we have concerns and we have different views as to how to adjust those concerns through legislation.

After all is said and done, there's no doubt in my mind that Irene Dawson is absolutely right with regard to where the responsibility lies. I know as a result of my experiences that taking children into court never really helped. As a peace officer, I always felt, as did my colleagues, that it was our responsibility to keep them out of court if we could, and we had the means, the discretion to do it. That discretion has been removed, partially through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which now states that whenever a policeman picks up a young offender for a criminal offence, they have to have a lawyer.

We heard from the representatives of the police chiefs association last week that it's impossible to get a statement from a young offender into court because of the legal barriers to that kind of thing. The police used to have the authority to handle in an informal way many of those cases and they always had behind them the support of the law and the court system. If they could not deal with it informally then of course they had to take it into the court system, but that was there as a power tool for the police to use as well as a possible consequence in the mind of the young offender. If we can't go down and see the store owner because you broke his window, you stole something...if we can't rectify that informally, then it's going to have to go to court. I know the application of proceedings in too many cases was ineffective, because I didn't see any change in the conduct of those young people after they went into court.

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I probably won't get back to you because of the time limit, so I would just like to ask all of you these questions. Before the Young Offenders Act was changed or brought into effect, provincial governments had the authority to determine whether 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds were considered adults for some offences. We now have a system for certain violent offences, and 16- and 17-year-olds can be raised into adult court and they can make application to indicate why they shouldn't be raised to adult court and be dealt with in juvenile or young offenders court.

I want your comments about whether or not violent offences such as assault, rape or murder should be automatically or certainly at the discretion of the crown prosecutor. Should he have the authority to move those cases into adult court? What do you think about that? I would like you to address again the question of repeat violent offenders and those involved in convictions of drug trafficking. Do you feel it is a public safety feature for full disclosure so that we know who is a threat to our families and our communities, or would the value to the individual in terms of rehabilitation override that factor?

I would like you to tell the committee what you feel about holding parents financially responsible for the criminal actions of their children, and I would like you to advise the committee what you would think about returning to the statute the old offence of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Under the old act, the Juvenile Delinquents Act, it was an offence for anyone who contributed to the delinquency of a juvenile, and they could be charged. That has been eliminated. It's no longer in the Criminal Code. It's no longer in the YOA.

So I'd like you to comment, if you would, on those areas, please.

Ms Dawson: Mr. Ramsay, I'm going to start.

On the issue of names in the paper, I think depending on the crime it's time we put in not only the name of the young offender but also the names of the parents. If we're going to pull this together as a family, the parents' names have to be there too.

Violent crime, ages 16 and 17, adult or not? I personally believe that by the time a child acquires the desensitized ability to be able to commit a violent crime, they're old beyond their years. I think there's no other way to deal with it except in an adult situation.

On repeat violent offences, again, the damage has been done. We have failed. We have failed the family. We have failed ourselves. We have not intervened early enough in the youth of the country if they repeat offend.

On repeat drug trafficking and drug trafficking in general, until Canadians realize that drug trafficking is a serious offence and treat it as such, stop giving little slaps on the hand depending on who you are and put names big and loud and bold across the newspaper that this is what's happening...it is against the laws of the country. Why is it kept so it's sort of okay, it wasn't very much? I don't agree with it.

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On holding parents financially responsible, I will never forget the wake-up call I had. I thought I was doing such a great job, and a son of mine, seven years old, broke the neighbour's window. He came home and he said he'd broken the window. I said it was okay and that we'd look after it. The people were not home and it was an accident. My kids were playing ball in the backyard and he just hit the ball harder with a bat than what he thought he could.

The neighbours came home and phoned the police, because damage had been done. In the meantime I had phoned the police and said, ``Look, if So-and-So comes home at this address and calls you about a broken window, it's my son who did it and we're waiting until they come home''. The police picked up the neighbour and came over to my place. When my seven-year-old son realized that I had to pay for that window, I never had any more problems. He never broke another one. He was sure he didn't hit the ball hard enough. So I think there also has to be some financial responsibility there.

Returning to the old act on contributing to juvenile crimes...we missed the mark when we took it out. I can tell you personal experiences miles thick. Anyone who works in any retail business...they are the greatest theft rings in the world, folks, especially for some big ticket items. The adults go in and tell the kid what they want. The kid is below the fur coat rack or whatever, hooks it on the toe and is gone with it. The adults do it because they know the child is not going to get in major trouble over it and there's no repercussions on the adult who initiated the action. That should never have been removed. It has to go back, and go back with more teeth in it.

Ms Caroline Landry (Representative, Provincial Advisory Council on Crime Prevention and Community Safety): The other thing I wanted to talk about was a concern that came up at one of our meetings, and that was sex crimes. If a 15-year-old is convicted of a sex crime of whatever sort - I was thinking more along the line of maybe someone who is a pedophile - when they turn 18 or 19, they can move to another area, go to work in a day care of some sort, and nobody has the right to find out about this previous offence. To me, that's really scary. We need to protect our young people.

This is one of the concerns that was brought up. I agree in some cases that these things have to be made public.

The Chair: That's all the time we have for this round.

Mr. Kirkby.

Mr. Kirkby: Ms Dawson, you raised the issue of adults encouraging young people to commit crimes for the benefit of the adults. Do you have any specific instances on Prince Edward Island where that has happened or has become a serious problem?

Ms Dawson: Yes, it has become a serious problem here, but it happens wherever you are from; it happens in Edmonton and in Charlottetown.

The Chair: Mr. Wells.

Mr. Wells (South Shore): Thank you for your presentation. It is very well done.

I'm going to leave the parental responsibility for a moment and talk about the school's responsibility and maybe the teacher's responsibility. I think it was Frances who raised that.

Have you had any personal involvement with the schools with respect to how they are now involved with the Young Offenders Act or how they treat youth crime in the schools as far as teachers' involvement?

Ms Pickle: No, I can't say that I have personally been involved with youth crime.

Mr. Wells: In your suggestions and ideas, when you talk about involving the schools and giving the teachers counselling skills and things of that nature...maybe you could elaborate a little more on what you feel the role of the school and the individual teacher might be.

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Ms Pickle: I can give you an example of teachers having counselling skills. I was talking to the youth counsellor last week, and he gave me an example of a student who was in grade 12. This student was having a lot of problems with one teacher and the counsellor suggested that he talk to her. He said he couldn't do that. So the counsellor asked why he didn't write a letter, and the student said he would write a letter. So he wrote a letter to the teacher, expressing how he felt. A couple of days later the teacher came over to him and whispered to him that she had read his letter. That was it. There was no other communication. Things changed. I guess the point I wanted to make was that there were no communications skills on the teacher's part; it was just left at ``I read your letter''.

I think a lot of teachers now are beginning to talk to counsellors or anyone who can help them, because there are so many kids in their rooms who have problems and the teachers don't know what to do with them. If they had a few counselling skills, they might be able to work with the kids. The teachers are with them day in and day out.

I forget what the other part was now.

Mr. Wells: I think you've basically covered the question.

I'd just like to know if anyone on the panel would have any involvement with school boards or anything dealing with schools. Maybe I can address it to Frances.

Is there any involvement with the school boards and how they're reacting to this type of situation? I know a lot of schools are into youth addiction counselling, perhaps more of them than the one you referred to. You also mentioned that one in your statements.

Is anyone involved with the school boards?

[Translation]

Ms Gallant: The francophone community is working hard to address this problem. We are more interested in prevention than in existing problems. We get young people involved in prevention at a very early age. In so doing, we hope that as they grow older, they will take responsibility for their actions. We start working with them when they are young in the hope that our efforts will pay off. We also work with older age groups with the help of RCMP officers.

The francophone school board is also involved a great deal in crime prevention activities.

[English]

Mr. Wells: Are you, yourself, involved with the school board? I didn't pick up earlier on your association with the.... When you say ``we'', are you talking about teachers, are you talking individual schools, or school boards?

[Translation]

Ms Gallant: Yes. I'm talking about all teaching staff and agents like myself. We work together to help young people take responsibility for their actions. Teachers take courses to help them gain a better understanding of youth.

[English]

Mr. Wells: Is there anybody else who wants to comment on that?

Ms Dawson: I would just comment that, having come from a teaching background, although I'm not directly involved with school boards right now...to see the full circle we've come.... When I first started teaching, we were totally involved with the children and with the parents. The home and school associations were also involved and the school boards were involved, because there were smaller units. As we enlarge, we get more scattered and the efforts get more scattered as well.

I guess I do have a bit of a problem with making an assumption that teachers can be a cure for the problems. I think teachers can be identifiers. I think they can then go to the school board or the home and school associations and get action going from that end. I think school boards are looking for some sort of direction, and I think that is lacking in a lot of this present-day system.

Ms Pickle: I can add a little to that. I am on a school council at a large high school at the western end of the island. I think there are probably about 700 children going to that school.

Last year, I was at different meetings. The principal there stressed that the main problem in the school was a lot of verbal violence and physical violence, and they were at the point at which they were going to start zero tolerance of violence in that school this year. Lately, at one of our meetings, he said they didn't start the zero tolerance of violence program because this year they don't have a problem with violence, verbally or physically, in the schools. He said the problem they have this year is suicide. He said they've had six or seven cases, which is a lot in a small school like that. They've had to work with children who have said they were going to commit suicide. That's the problem right now.

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Mr. Wells: Do I still have some time?

The Chair: Yes, about three and a half minutes.

Mr. Wells: That leads into the other area I wanted to discuss. A number of you talked about early intervention programs, which I think are very important.

What do you have in Prince Edward Island and what are you individually involved in, in trying to modify anti-social behaviour at the early stages? That's not necessarily in the schools; it can be through social agencies or whatever. What's happening in P.E.I. in that regard?

[Translation]

Ms Gallant: A program has been developed and it goes by the name of "Nobody is perfect". It is geared primarily to parents at risk rather than to youth at risk. The ``at risk" designation does not necessarily refer to sexual or physical abuse. It applies to parents who are far from their families, isolated and without any support. They are deemed to be ``at risk" because of these factors. We try to avoid using the expression ``at risk", because at any given point, probably all parents could be considered at risk.

This program is geared to children from infancy to six years of age and is offered in both French and English. Parents attend sessions which last from 10 to 12 months. The sessions are a source of support for parents. Many of them are alone, or head up single parent families. Those involved with the program are, for the most part, volunteers and they work long and hard. Their goal is to help these parents.

Program volunteers are recruited either through the social program network or by word of mouth, this being one of the best ways to get people to participate in our programs geared to youth and parents. Many provide day care services, which makes it easier for parents to attend our sessions.

[English]

Ms Barnes: I would like to mention two initiatives that are occurring in the province. One is with the Health and Community Services Agency; there is a new funding initiative called Children Come First. Just recently 20 different projects were funded, and one of the criteria was that they have an early intervention aspect to them.

Another initiative is with the child and family services department in one of our regions - we have regions here in P.E.I. - which is called the supermom program. That's a program whereby an expectant teen mom is linked up with a highly functional family. The teen mother goes in, lives with this family, and learns parenting skills with this family. That's really a program that is in its infancy.

I just wanted to say that as an advisory group, our involvement in this initiative is to gain support and momentum to be able to swing the resources into this area of early intervention. That's part of our mandate. We're not really involved in implementing, as a group, early intervention programs. We do want to support them and gain support for them.

Mr. Wells: Do you think more needs to be done in this area - I'm referring to P.E.I. - to have it in hand, or do you still need to put more resources into it?

Ms Barnes: No. We don't have it in hand. I think we're on the right track, but we're certainly not there yet. Really the mission of this group is to get more going in that area.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mrs. Venne, five minutes.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: Generally speaking, three types of crime prevention have been identified.

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The first type, know as primary prevention, consists of preventing offences from occurring. Secondary prevention entails identifying Àat riskä youth and their families and intervening to modify antisocial behaviour. Tertiary prevention involves rehabilitation measures.

I would like to know which of the two first types of crime prevention have proven to be more effective in the long term. Which primary crime prevention programs have been the most effective? Which kind do you favour? Furthermore, what secondary prevention programs do you prefer? I'm talking about those programs which identify youths and intervene with their families.

As far as rehabilitation is concerned, there are many possible approaches. Which ones do you prefer? I already have a fairly clear understanding of the direction you would take. However, perhaps you could be more specific.

[English]

Ms Pickle: On prevention, I think I mentioned that if the parents miss that the child has a problem, it may be picked up by the school system. From there the teachers can recommend that social services or a counsellor or whomever work with that child.

I'm from West Prince, and in my area anyway they are planning to try to organize in the school system a group of people who would work with the teacher. If a teacher has a child in her room whom she feels has a problem she can't deal with, she would call in this group of professionals. There may be four or five people in this group. They would sit with her and discuss the child and try to figure out the best thing to do. I think it would be a prevention of an offence, for sure, if all these people worked with that child.

As for young people at risk, I would say a lot of extreme counselling sessions would help. That would be an intervention, for sure, and I think it would be the main one I would suggest.

With respect to rehabilitation, again I would suggest extreme counselling, a lot of work with the family, and a lot of work with the community to try to help the young person. If the crime is really serious, we would have to look at a more severe punishment. There's a lot of talk now of boot camp. Someone suggested maybe it's good for really serious crimes, but I feel that when they come out of there they'll still need a lot of rehabilitation in a counselling way. Someone said to me that she always asks the child why the child did what the child did, and that she keeps asking the question until she gets the answer from the child, because there always is a reason for the child having committed the act. If you dig long enough and keep asking, you'll get the answer, and then you can start to try to rehabilitate the child.

Thank you.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: Would anyone else care to comment about this?

Ms Gallant: Regarding Ms Pickle's comment, in order to arrange a meeting with teachers and parents, the young person's problem must be significant. The objective is to make the young person take responsibility for his actions by involving him in the process.

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He is involved in the solution. If he is unable to function, he is presented with the various options available to him. He participates in the decision-making process and is not left standing outside the door.

Mrs. Venne: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Madame Venne, thank you. Mr. Ramsay, five minutes.

Mr. Ramsay: Because there has been considerable emphasis on the responsibility of parents in your presentation this morning, not only from Irene Dawson, but others as well, I want to read to you section 172 of the Criminal Code:

172 (1) Every one who, in the home of a child, participates in adultery or sexual immorality or indulges in habitual drunkenness or in any other form of vice, and thereby endangers the morals of the child or renders the home an unfit place for the child to be in, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

(3) For the purposes of this section, ``child'' means a person who is or appears to be under the age of eighteen years.

(4) No proceedings shall be commenced under subsection (1) without the consent of the Attorney General,

First, were you aware of this section in the Criminal Code? Second, do you know whether or not the Attorney General has ever authorized a charge under this section?

Ms Dawson: I guess I wasn't aware of it, certainly in its entirety, which you have just read. I have always been of the understanding that parents are responsible for their children until they are 18; therefore, they are also held accountable for the examples, if you will, that they set and their involvement with it.

I cannot think of a particular instance, to my knowledge, in which the Attorney General has enacted this power.

I can tell you from experience and knowledge over the years that there have been cases in which children have been removed from an unsafe home. I can't tell you whether it was done by an order of the Attorney General under the previous act and legislation through the RCMP, or whether police or child welfare workers would have had the authority to do that on their own.

Mr. Ramsay: Would anyone else like to comment on that particular section?

Do you think it would be beneficial in terms of awakening a sense of greater responsibility on the parts of some parents if they're aware of this section?

I guess the point I'm getting at is this. For years, ever since I've become familiar with the Criminal Code, there has been a section that protects female children against sexual involvement and inducement into sexual immorality. It used to be called the old statutory rape section, which states that anyone who has sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 14 is guilty of an indictable offence with very severe penalties.

We have that happening all across the country. The point I have made to many people is that I have not seen very many charges laid. We have child prostitution. We have children who are giving birth who would fall within that category, which is prima facie evidence or a case of a violation of that particular section. Yet, I have seldom seen the law, which is there to protect those children, ever enacted. Do you have any comments or thoughts about that that you would like to share with the committee?

Ms Pickle: I agree with you. We've gone too far the other way to sort of, well, feel sorry for people who get involved in crime. I would say that the system has almost been supporting the person who commits the crime, and the victim is the one who suffers.

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We've experienced that in my own family, and I can certainly relate to the victim's suffering. The person who commits the crime against the victim has gone on Easy Street, in a way.

So I would agree with you. We have to start to enforce the laws for adults especially. Young offenders have become almost victims, I think, of our society. I think the adults have to really start to take responsibility for their actions.

Mr. Ramsay: Thank you. My time is up. I won't have another round with you, but I want to thank you very much for the work you're doing. I think that in what you're doing in that area lies the answer to this whole area of youth crime. We have to stop it before it reaches the courts. If we don't, the courts are not going to do it. We can't enact laws that are going to adequately protect society.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Gallaway.

Mr. Gallaway: Good morning. One of you - I don't know who - said that we must have an accurate picture of crime.

I want to ask you about your communities. I know that you're not keepers of statistical numbers, but in the communities that you represent, is there, in your opinion, an increase in crime among youth, or is it simply a perception, with regard to improved and greater communications and the world - Canada - becoming a smaller place in terms of communications? Is there in fact an increase in crime among our youth?

Ms Dawson: I will comment on it. I don't believe I made that quote, because I don't think you can get a picture of crime. I think you can only get a picture after a crime has been committed.

I believe that with the desensitizing of values, the encouragement of family fragmentation, the invasion of all the violence that all of us, our children and ourselves, are submitted to in television and everything else every day, I think youth crime has increased. It's because the values are not there. It doesn't mean anything any more. The answer is yes, it has increased and in all levels, all areas and with disrespect as well.

Mr. Gallaway: Thank you. I don't know if anyone else wants to answer that.

Ms Dawson, you've made a very interesting suggestion, which is extending the idea of responsibility to the families, i.e. the parents. In doing so, I think you're moving criminal law into a new area. I certainly am not disagreeing with you in the sense that our laws have traditionally held the individual responsible. We have never gone beyond the individual, especially with criminal law. It may be different in civil law; you must have the intent to commit an act.

You're suggesting, I think, that we should enlarge the circle to include the parents, who may be benignly happy with their own lives but totally ignorant of what their children are doing.

I just want to clarify this. For example, if a young offender were charged with car theft, joy riding, would you then also charge the parents, or would you want a mechanism to ensure that they are within the court system and present when the child is brought before the court?

Ms Dawson: I'm not sure that I had pre-thought that type of question, or any others for that matter. I think it's an area that's relatively new in concept to a lot of theories and practices. Certainly the present legal system is not familiar with it. I hesitate to say a blanket yes, but I more greatly hesitate to say a blanket no.

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I find the very fact that we are willing to say that parents are complacent about what their kid does is the problem. So if a child is charged with auto theft or joy riding or whatever you want to call it, the first stop is with the parents. Whether they are charged through the legal system or whether they are determined to be among those who say it doesn't matter to them, mandatory parenting skills would be imposed on those parents.

Mr. Gallaway: I just want to make a comparison. I think it was Ms Pickle who brought along the presentation dated today. Under ``Suggestions and ideas'' you say, ``Young offenders should not be named in newspapers during or after their court cases''.

Ms Dawson, I believe you said they should be.

I wonder if you could each give your respective rationale or reasons.

Ms Pickle: I guess the main reason I thought they should not be mentioned during or after the court case is that in the rehabilitation process, we thought it would serve as a deterrent if their name was splashed all over the papers. When someone looked at them they would feel they were a criminal, and that's it. It would take away from their rehabilitation.

In a really serious crime, I have no problem with that, but for something that's not so serious, I don't really think the names should be splashed in the paper.

Mr. Gallaway: So you're just saying there would be some exceptions.

Ms Pickle: Yes, more of an adult-type crime.

Mr. Gallaway: Are you making a blanket suggestion that they be published or not?

Ms Dawson: No, I'm not making a blanket statement. I think the reason I say names should be published is because, again, we're encouraging society to side and hide with crime. If somebody didn't see me do it, well, don't tell them, they'll never know about it. They'll know the thing happened, but nobody will know who did it.

As far as youth names being published is concerned, if my child stole a chocolate bar, I don't think that name should be in the paper. But if my child at 14 beat up my neighbour's kid at 10, I think it should be in the paper. So I think crimes against a person are perhaps treated differently from crimes against property, although I think it's a fine line.

Mr. Gallaway: I have one final question. It has to do with young people at what is now the low end of the scale. Those who are 12 enter the system, those who are 11 do not. I'd like to know from our group here what your thoughts are on that. Should 11-year-old children be hauled before a very formalized court system or a very formalized social system in dealing with young people?

Ms Dawson: I guess I'll speak to that again. It sort of comes back to a response I had planned on making to Madam Venne about primary prevention, identifying risks and so on and so forth. To me, primary prevention is birth to pre-school, and I think the identifying risk is once they hit school. I'll give you just a quick example.

The night before last I was coming home from one of these late-night travellings, at 2:30 a.m. These two kids were in a neighbour's yard with a flashlight, looking in the door. It turns out these children are 12 and 14. They live in your very standard, respectable neighbourhood type of thing. These kids had sneaked out of their home about a mile away and had come to call for their two 14-year-old friends who were sleeping on the living room floor. This was a set-up, okay. They were going to get out at night to see what was going on.

It bothered me. I have to say that the two youths who were at the door saw me standing on my doorstep watching, and they both came down to reassure me I didn't have to worry, that this was all they were doing. They were just sneaking their friends out. They were going to just run around for a little while.

I did advise the RCMP. I told the youths what would happen and sent them scurrying. The next day I went and talked to the parents of the children they were trying to get out. There was absolute horror on their faces to think that their children would have been willing to go out, and thank goodness they hadn't been woken up, that type of thing.

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So I think if you look at the whole picture, part of the intervention of crime and part of the prevention of delinquency, if you will, is that, yes, children have structures, and they do have hours. If a community decides that 10 p.m. is the latest that children 12 and under should be out, then we wouldn't have to worry about 12-year-olds breaking into Canadian Tire and doing armed hold-ups, would we?

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Gallaway.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Irene, if I were 14 years old I don't think I'd mess with you.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Ms Dawson: No, but you could come to me, then, and I would help you.

The Chair: I can see that very clearly, but I know why your 7-year-old was upset about breaking the window.

Thank you very much. You've been very helpful.

We're going to take a couple of minutes to stretch while our new witnesses join us.

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The Chair: Order, please.

We have with us now from the Community Legal Information Association of Prince Edward Island, Ann Sherman, the executive director, and Kerry Chappell. I want to welcome you both. I see you've brought a crowd of reinforcements with you and we're very glad to have them here as well.

Ms Ann Sherman (Executive Director, Community Legal Information Association of Prince Edward Island): So are we. We're a little nervous. So it's nice to have the cheering section in the back.

The Chair: That's how we run it in politics too. Always bring your own cheering section. There's nothing to be nervous about.

We've encroached on your time a little and we'll make that up for you. We have approximately an hour and we would ask you to proceed with whichever way you're comfortable. We have a copy of your brief but we'd like to hear your presentation. Then individual members will have questions.

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Ms Sherman: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. We circulated copies of the brief to the standing committee, together with copies of another consultation we did for the Youth Justice Education Partnership. I apologize that I didn't get around to stapling the two of them together. I had a little trouble with the photocopier this morning. As always when you're trying to do something quickly, it takes twice as long as you anticipated.

I'd really like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before the standing committee on this important subject.

The brief we're going to present this morning is a piece of work that was done by young people and adults together. It's as a result of work the Community Legal Information Association has been involved in. The three young people who were instrumental in putting the information together for you are Trevor Clements and Roy Larouche, who are unable to be here today, and Kerry Chappell, who is here with me this morning.

The Community Legal Information Association of Prince Edward Island - we call it CLIA, for short - is a registered charity and a non-profit corporation founded to provide public legal education and information to the general population.

Our goal is to provide islanders with understandable, useful information about our laws and our justice system. We're currently involved in a youth project called Legal Information and Youth - Alcohol and Drugs. Last year the project involved young people working with another Charlottetown-based group, the Adventure Group, where they were employed in building an R.O.P.E.S. course. This year participants in the L.A.W. project, at work project, who are here supporting us this morning, will be further involved in helping us to distribute materials we're publishing through the project.

Last year, CLIA also convened a meeting of ten young islanders with members of the Youth Justice Committee of the National Crime Prevention Council. I sit on the council as the representative from Prince Edward Island.

The young people who spoke to council told us they feel exploited by adults. They say drug traffickers get them hooked and often use them, the young people, to sell to their peers. They say they feel undervalued by a society that has no interest in investing in them unless they're academically bright. They feel isolated by a society that doesn't want to have anything to do with them as a group.

For example, here in Charlottetown young people have been trying to find somewhere acceptable to skateboard for a number of years now. They're moved on by property owners and police from the sites they select and other property owners protest when they move to newer areas or when a skateboard park is suggested for a particular neighbourhood.

The skateboarders are not kids who are in trouble with the law. They dress funnily. They look funny. They're loud and boisterous and they're full of youthful energy, but skateboarding is not a harmful or criminal activity. In fact, it's a healthful and entertaining activity if you've ever watched them. But it's not socially acceptable in Charlottetown.

We are now approaching the fourth summer, at least, that the problem with downtown skateboarders has existed and there's still nowhere for them to go. The youth have worked hard to try to find alternate places. Some adults have worked hard to find alternate places. It's progressing very slowly. We will have a skateboard park, but generations of skateboarders will have grown up and left the sport before the plans become reality. When you think about young people and you think about adults, our perspectives of time are very different.

In February this year, CLIA also undertook a youth consultation for the Youth Justice Education Partnership, which is a coalition of community groups and government looking at educating people about the Young Offenders Act and the youth justice system.

We met with 99 young people here in P.E.I. Some of them were in custody, some were in school and some were in the community. I have appended the report of those consultations to our brief this morning.

One of the messages that was clearly given and repeated by the various groups was that young people wanted an opportunity to talk to decision-makers. They felt politicians should listen to them. The staff of CLIA, therefore, took it upon themselves to encourage young people who had been involved in our youth project to write to you requesting an appearance. This was last fall. We thank you for the positive response to that letter.

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Unfortunately - or fortunately - because of the timing of your visit, only one member of the group who spent time and effort putting together this brief with me is able to attend today, and that's Kerry. The other two are at work. So it's unfortunate for us but good for them that they are not able to be here; they're both now in the paid employment group.

We also have a group of other young people here to give us support and to participate informally in this exercise of participatory democracy. I hope you'll have an opportunity to speak to them after our presentation, especially if we don't take up your full hour.

The youths working on this brief conducted an informal survey of the young people they came into contact with.

Ms Kerry Chappell (Representative, Community Legal Information Association of Prince Edward Island): They found that many of the youths they spoke with either had an experience with the youth justice system or knew friends and acquaintances who had been involved. This highlights the need to make available good, clear, accurate information about the Young Offenders Act and the youth justice system so that it can become part of this peer information network.

Most young people felt that having a place to go would have made a difference to them. There are few places for young people to go in Charlottetown. The Boys and Girls Club appeals to the younger age group. Some kids go to the YMCA. The Eclipse Youth Centre, which provided a place for other youths to hang out, has closed. So young people hang out on the streets, at the Confed Centre, at friends' places, in malls, at home and in parking lots.

Young people get hassled a lot and they get moved on, even from public parks, but they are not given a place to go. There's a clearly held perception that a group of kids together is trouble looking for a place to happen. This is stereotyping. If and when trouble does occur, rather than dealing with the troublemaker and making an example of him or her, property owners, business people, parents, etc., check the whole group out.

Ms Sherman: A recurring theme was the need for treatment centres for young people, open and accessible and not tied to involvement with any system, a place that would take self-referrals from kids ready to seek help. Some respondents talked about the need for long-term solutions rather than quick fixes. They saw programs such as Katimavik, Youth Services Canada and services such as the island help line, currently being developed by the YMCA here in Charlottetown in collaboration with other community groups and government agencies, as some positive responses to youth needs.

We find there's widely held confusion about consequences. In some cases, young people don't think about or understand how they will be held responsible for their acts. One example given was that of a young man who had a job. He didn't need more money but he wanted more. He committed fraud, got caught, went through the criminal justice process, lost his freedom, lost his job and has no references for future work. I think this is an example of a young person who was caught by not understanding the consequences of his actions.

There is a widely held myth out there that the Young Offenders Act treats young people leniently. We know it doesn't, especially when it comes to crimes against property and crimes such as fraud. This young man had no idea of the extreme range of consequences he would be facing.

Again, this highlights the need for clear and accurate information about the consequences of criminal activity.

Ms Chappell: Young people see and understand the need to take responsibility for their actions. Many of them are concerned and confused about dispositions in youth court. They said they would like to see meaningful consequences that clearly hold young people responsible for their actions; a focus on rehabilitation, open to different approaches, with custody reserved for those who are violent or cannot be rehabilitated without definite structure and treatment; and choices that can lead to building a person up rather than breaking them down.

The comment is that even when custody is an appropriate option for some youths, we run the risk of institutionalizing them. Life in custody is familiar, safe and secure. There's little survival stress. Some people commented that it's a good place to spend the winter.

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Custodial sentences must be reserved as a last resort in cases when they're needed to protect society. When young offenders are released from custody, they often go back to exactly the same situations that led to their incarceration in the first place. Young people said they needed an after-care program to help them change their way of life after incarceration.

Having an income is important. Youths who work know they are productive members of society. It builds their self-esteem and proves they can be independent and contributing members of the community.

Addictions play a large role and can lead to involvement in the youth justice system, not only because of the need to support a habit but also because a criminal lifestyle is part of the package. For kids living at home, it's a different story. It's one of evading contact and trying to hide the evidence of drug and alcohol use.

Youths said to treat the addiction before kids get involved in the system, not when they are involved, and make the treatment readily available so that young people can get help when they need it.

There was agreement among the youths that alcohol and drugs are generally in use here in P.E.I., with abuse of drugs being seen as a greater problem than abuse of alcohol. They told us that drugs are becoming more mainstream and the stigma around drug use is lessening. They expressed a certain degree of cynicism about the fact that alcohol and tobacco are legal at a certain age and drugs are illegal. In trying to combat use of drugs and alcohol, they said to give real, concrete evidence about the harm that drugs do to peoples' lives and to prove to youths that drugs will hurt them.

Ms Sherman: In conclusion, we heard that much of what is seen as a problem with young people has more to do with society as a whole than with the justice system. The justice system doesn't create criminals, although it does label young people as criminals, and the justice system can't change society. The problem is bigger and must be dealt with as a whole.

While collecting information for this brief, we encountered a sense of defeatism among youth, a feeling that there is little or no meaning to life, and for many youths a sense of having no future. This is a telling indictment of our society. I suggest that the future of our young people is what we must address in order to make meaningful changes for youths and to cut down on youth crime.

Thank you for your consideration, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Madame Venne, you have 10 minutes.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: The letter of intent that we received and that was signed by Greg Trainor, Greg Wilson and Johnny Thompson repeatedly referred to the fact that young people are ignorant of the Young Offenders Act and would like to know more about it to understand the consequences they would face if they transgressed the law.

I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised by this, because ignorance is no excuse. It's only because these youths have had to deal with the legislation that they are interested in its specific provisions. Normally, a young person doesn't have to be concerned about the Young Offenders Act unless he needs to turn to the legislation to defend himself. Are they saying that all young people should be taught about the legislation and its implications in school?

I would also like to know in what way the young people in question felt aggrieved by this legislation.

[English]

Ms Sherman: You'll find that much of this information is addressed in the other report I appended from the Youth Justice Education Partnership. We have found that young people have the same misunderstandings about the Young Offenders Act that many adults do. When we talked to young people about educating youth about the law, they suggested to us that, yes, every young person should learn about the Young Offenders Act, should learn about the criminal justice system, and that this education should start in elementary school.

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One other thing they told us was that education about the law, which starts at grade 11 or 12, is too late. They felt that all young people should be informed about the law at a younger age. Research that has been done, particularly the Hunter-Turner report in the States, has shown that education about the law does have a pro-social effect and does increase compliance.

The second question, if I understood it correctly, Madam Venne, was how young people are feeling neglected in terms of information about the Young Offenders Act.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: Not neglected but aggrieved.

[English]

Ms Sherman: For the last little while there's been very little information available for young people about the Young Offenders Act. In fact, in my office we found it very difficult to keep on file current information, public legal information, about the Young Offenders Act. As the act has changed, pamphlets and booklets have gone out of date and have not been replaced. The Youth Justice Education Partnership, I think, started a couple of years ago as a movement to try to get information back in the public domain. The federal Department of Justice has just recently issued a little accordian-style pamphlet about the Young Offenders Act, which addresses some of the myths and falsehoods that, through some research we did for YJEP, we discovered were prevalent.

The Youth Justice Education Partnership has asked to speak to you during your travels across the country. I think this whole issue of youth education may be better addressed when they come before you.

But it is amazing how this one piece of legislation has been misunderstood in the country, not only by young people but also by adults.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: More specifically, are some of the ways in which the legislation is applied unfair toward young people? That's what I'm trying to get at. Is there something in the way the current legislation is applied that is really unfair toward young people? Of course, the provinces are the ones responsible for applying the legislation.

[English]

Ms Sherman: I think there are some provisions that were to be instituted by provinces, that have not been instituted in the same way across the country. For instance, here in P.E.I. we don't have youth justice committees. I think the institution of youth justice committees would have made a great difference to the way in which the act was implemented and understood. I think it would have made a great deal of difference to the way in which the community at large responded to the Young Offenders Act. Whether it would have made any difference for young people, I'm not sure, but at least it would have let them know that the community was interested in what was happening to them.

One of the side effects that I think is a little unfortunate about the publication ban on names is that it does allow the community, by and large, to ignore what's going on with young people. We only hear about the extreme cases. We don't hear about the vast majority of young people who go to youth court. Their names are not published. Reporters who are covering all of the courts very often only go to youth court when there's a high-profile or serious case to be discussed. In a way, that allows the community to turn its back on young offenders. We don't know who they are. We don't, in many cases, know what they're doing. It's a sign of disinterest.

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Another thing we were told very clearly by young people was that they felt the community was casting them out. The community had turned its back on them. They very much wanted to be involved in activities with the community.

If you look at the other side, too, at other provincial responsibilities like alternative measures, again, I think you see in different provinces a very uneven application of alternatives measures. They're instituted in different ways in different provinces. The success rate and the sorts of programs involved in alternative measures for young offenders varies greatly from province to province.

Here in P.E.I., I think the alternative measures program could be improved. It's very much a systems-based program, not a community-based program. Again, I think we've missed the boat a little bit by not inviting the community to come on side more with alternative measures and to implement some meaningful consequences for young people who are put on alternative measures.

One of the things our first offenders are often asked to do here, when there aren't alternative measures, is to write an essay about the Young Offenders Act. It's not a very meaningful consequence for them. I think being involved in some sort of meaningful community activity would be much better. Having to do something they are not happy to do other than merely writing an essay might be better. Learning about the consequences of their actions for the victims would be more appropriate than merely having to sit down and write an essay about the Young Offenders Act.

[Translation]

Mrs. Venne: The letter of intent says that the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

[English]

Ms Sherman: I am having difficulty with my translation device.

[Translation]

Ms Venne: I was talking about the letter of intent which says that the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Let me read what it says exactly:

A slap on the wrist because we are youth and therefore should be given the benefit of making a mistake does us more damage than good. We get the message that crime is not serious - how can it be when the consequences are seemingly so insignificant?

Is the feeling generally that the punishment does not fit the crime or isn't this more of an excuse?

[English]

Ms Sherman: The opinion is based, to a large extent, on what's read in the media and what is passed through the informal network. I think there's a lot of confusion about the fact that you may get the same sentence for shoplifting, if it's the second or third time, as you might get for assault. There's a lot of confusion about the fact that what young people see as a very serious offence often ends up with the same sanction as a less serious offence.

As well, because of the small amount of information available to reporters, a lot of knowledge is not present about the circumstances that led up to the commission of the crime. One of the things we do when we report court cases in the newspaper is we squeeze a morning's court case into fifty words. What gets left out very often is the particular circumstances of the offender who is before the court.

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What I found when I've talked to young people is that if you give them a case study that clearly outlines the offender's circumstances, the circumstances of the crime and the disposition and ask them to come up with a meaningful sentence, their sentence is much closer to the sentences that judges are actually giving than they would be if they were just responding to the basic facts.

I think all of us tend to make snap judgments based just on the barest of facts. In many cases I think it's easier to do that than to think about the underlying root causes that led to the activity in the first place.

Personally, I feel we will only really begin to affect youth justice and youth crime when we start looking at some of the root causes of crime, when we start looking at some of the conditions that allow crime to prosper. Certainly one of them that's addressed in this brief is the feeling of isolation and alienation from the community that young people are feeling. There are many other conditions that we as a society need to address if we're serious about cutting down on these crimes.

I apologize for not being able to organize the interpretation.

The Chair: Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Ramsay: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank you for coming here today and speaking with us. I appreciate a number of things that you have brought forward.

I have always thought that the reluctance on the part of the legislators to make repeat violent offenders subject to full disclosure was wrong. The reason I believe that is because I don't think that a criminal justice system can work in the long run if we hide the truth. I think a justice system is based on the truth. With all due respect to those who oppose my view on this, I believe that the institution of laws that protect the individual from the consequences of their actions, including full disclosure, is a result of what I term misguided compassion, for the lack of a better term. We all would like the young offender to be rehabilitated and never enter into actions that will bring them before the court again.

I have always thought that if it hadn't been for the pain when I touched the hot stove after mother had told me not to, I would have burned my finger on it. So there are consequences for every action. We are hiding the consequences. We're not allowing the consequences of the actions of young adults, 15, 16 and 17-year-olds, even 14-year-olds, who have a sense of what is right and wrong, to bear fully upon them.

You mentioned in your presentation that very thing, that many of the youth do not know the full consequences of their actions as far as the law is concerned, and particularly the Young Offenders Act.

I'd like to ask you to comment on something that we haven't touched on to any great extent, and that is the degree to which alcohol abuse and drug use contributes to the rate of youth crime. In other words, if we could eliminate, not alcohol, but alcohol abuse...I think that young people who get involved in alcohol...it is an abuse, because basically it's against the law until you're of a certain age. Certainly, the use of marijuana and hard drugs is a violation of the law and it contributes to further acts of illegality.

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Do you think that we as a society should be emphasizing and perhaps placing more resources in the area of education? Should our teachers, schools, principals and so on be emphasizing the consequences of involvement in alcohol and drugs? The reason I ask you this - and certainly it's obvious - is because of my own personal experience.

We have four children, and our two daughters are adults. We have twin boys who will be 18 at the end of this month. When one of the twins was in grade 7 he came home and told us a story about his teacher and the extent to which he pounded away at them about the consequences of getting involved with drugs or alcohol, and in fact he also touched on smoking and what it would do to their lungs, and so on. He made it so explicit that I owe him a debt of gratitude because of the impression he made upon my son, which reinforced our own teachings within our home.

Getting back to my question, to what extent do you think we could reduce the rate of youth crime if we were to inform in a very graphic way our youth within the schools and so on of the dangers of getting involved with smoking? Physically, it's a problem...and, of course, in alcohol and drugs where it's such a threat to the moral fibre of the individual and where their inhibitions are reduced or vanish and they're capable of sexual immorality and responding to feelings of anger and so on. Could I have your comments, Ms Sherman?

Ms Sherman: We certainly found that when the group went out and spoke to their peers, they found that alcohol and drugs were a large factor in young people's involvement. They told us very clearly that when you're doing education not only about drugs but also about the justice system, you should focus on the realities, you should focus on the effects, and you should provide realistic information. They said very clearly that they wanted to hear from people who had been involved and who had come through and made a difference in their lives. That extended to young adults who had been involved in the youth justice system, had been in the young offenders' system, and had come out, turned their lives around, and developed positive lives for themselves.

They also talked about hearing the real information about the effects of drugs and alcohol. Certainly the implication was that the information should be available and that they should have it without any glosses; there should be no softening of the information. It should be the real, hard facts about the consequences. They were very clear about that.

I wanted to go back to your comments about the repeat offenders and the violent offenders and the need to publish their names. One of the things that I'm more than a little concerned about is that we now have the ability to, if necessary, send young offenders over the age of 14 to an adult institution and to actually have their trials in an adult court.

I'm concerned about sending young offenders to adult institutions because I think we cannot protect them once they get to the adult institution. I'm not sure how we are going to ensure that we do protect them, because that, it seems to me, is a very important responsibility. It's one that I believe Canada is going to have to face. My understanding is that it was one of the sections of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that we did not sign, not housing young offenders with adult offenders.

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If we are looking at having longer sentences in adult institutions for young offenders, we had better make sure we protect those young offenders from predation from adult offenders. That really concerns me.

Second, while I understand why there has been such a focus on the maximum sentences under the Young Offenders Act and why the original maximum sentence of three years became a lightning rod for many people who were dissatisfied with the act, I feel that as we now have longer sentences - with the last amendments we have the ability to sentence for up to 10 years - it's very important that we develop some effective treatment programs. If you sentence a 15-year-old for 10 years and they come out when they're 25, if they've been brutalized when they've been in the system...I wouldn't want to run into that 25-year-old young person, who is probably feeling completely alienated, not only from society at large but also from any sort of person who might be able to help them.

I think we need to be very careful with the longer sentences, because we're still going to have young people coming out of the system. We'd better make sure they're not further brutalized and damaged by the system. That's a real concern of mine about the longer sentences.

I think the focus needs to be on effective response rather than purely punitive response. I wish I were an expert and could come up with a correct answer. I can't, I'm afraid. I can only give you my best instincts. But I think the consequences should be much clearer. We should do a much better job of educating young people about those consequences. We should do a much better job of educating them about the law in general.

Second, there should be logic that young people can understand when it comes to dispositions. They should be able to understand why they're being sentenced or given a particular disposition for a particular crime.

One of the things the council recommended - I know you, or at least the former committee, heard from the National Crime Prevention Council - was increased amounts of police discretion. Very often we find that police officers know their community. They know the young people who are coming before them. If they had the ability to exercise their discretion, I think they could make a lasting change on the life of that young person. They're using a lot of the knowledge they have gained on the streets, watching what's happening and learning about what's happening. There are some wonderful programs where police officers actually mentor young people who have come into contact with the law.

If we can encourage the use of discretion by police officers and others involved in the system so that we don't have a system that treats all kids in the same way but have the ability to treat young people in the most appropriate way for them, whether it's a punitive response or a community response.... I think that's very important.

The Chair: Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Gallaway.

Mr. Gallaway: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for a very interesting presentation.

I want to talk about education and consequences with respect to the Young Offenders Act. From the perspective of the population in general, education comes through the media. I think there's a perception that young people today are in some way worse than they were at some point in the past, whether it be five or ten years ago.

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I also think a number of buzzwords, if I can refer to them as that, creep into the vocabulary. I've heard comments this morning about young adults being people of 14, 15, 16, and 17, whereas I would assume a young adult is somebody who is 18, 19, 20 or 21.

There's a push in certain quarters to lower the age at which the adult system kicks in. At the same time, we don't recognize people of 15 years of age, in most provinces of this country, being eligible to drive, being eligible to vote, being eligible to drink, being eligible to do all sorts of adult things. Yet we want to impose adult sanctions upon them. I find this somewhat inconsistent and somewhat confusing at times.

I want to talk about education. You mentioned a drive for youth education with respect to the criminal justice system in general. Do you think that has a positive or pro-social effect in that community?

Ms Sherman: I do. I think the way you provide the education is important. Kerry could probably address this, how it could be provided in a way that young people would be open to receiving the information.

When I did the consultation for the Youth Justice Education Partnership, one of the things we were told very clearly was to forget the skits, forget the moralizing, forget the videos: give us real information, take us to the court, let us see youth court in action, let us go to the correctional institutions to see what those are like, and let us talk to former young offenders and hear about what it's really like to be in there.

Those were very clear messages. The young people we spoke to, whether they were in the institution, in school, or in the community and have dropped out of school, said they felt school was a very appropriate place to start that education. I was surprised by that one. They said to start it in school at the elementary level.

The second thing they said was to carry it on into the community through alternative education programs and through educational programs that would be provided in places where the kids go. That may be at a youth centre, if there's an appropriate youth centre, or it may be at the mall.

One of the groups we spoke to said to us, well, just about every mall has empty space, and kids hanging out at a mall creates a real problem. They get moved on a lot, they get hassled. Why couldn't they have that empty space for a youth drop-in centre when it's not being used by a commercial business?

On different nights, they suggested, you could have different programs. For instance, on Tuesday night public health nurses could give public health information. On Wednesday nights university students could provide tutoring help. On Fridays a couple of lawyers could volunteer their time and provide information in a place where young people feel comfortable and where they can drop in when they need it.

There were quite a few innovative suggestions like that for providing education. There was a lot of support for the alternative education programs happening here, and must be happening elsewhere, in terms of youth internship programs, whereby kids spend part of the day in school and part of the day on the job site. Alternative education programs are completely outside of the school. There are things like that.

We didn't hear anybody who said not to teach or tell them about the Young Offenders Act, who said they didn't want to know, or weren't interested. We also didn't hear from kids who said not to tell them about their responsibilities. They were very clear. Young people, by and large, are willing to accept their responsibilities if they can see a reason behind why they have those responsibilities.

Mr. Gallaway: You've made a recommendation, I believe, that the police should be vested with more discretion when it comes to dealing with young people. But I note in the brief you've presented, at the top of page 2, you say that in your consultations with young people they have drawn your attention to the fact that the police often react based on the physical appearance of the individual. So if they have extremely long hair, strange-coloured hair, or no hair, perhaps, the reaction is somehow couched upon their physical appearance. How do you reconcile giving the police more discretion, knowing that the police may be totally subjective based strictly on the physical appearance of the individual they're dealing with?

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Ms Sherman: I think we need to be more open about the fact that all of us respond viscerally to how somebody else looks. It's just part of the human response. But we need to get to the point where we can see beyond that. Certainly, here where young people said that justice system officials react to how they look rather than to who they are is a very valid criticism. But I think there are a lot of police officers who do have the ability to look beyond how individuals look. It's very personalized. It's a difficult question to respond to because the response is so individualized.

Philosophically, we probably all accept that you need to go beyond the appearance, but intuitively and practically, it's difficult to do that, especially for a police officer who is in a situation where he or she has to make quick responses to something that's going down. They don't always respond in the kindest and gentlest fashion at that particular time, but they do have the ability to develop a discretionary response down the road.

Last year we ran into difficulties with the skateboarding issue and the police here in town. Things got to the point where there was actual violence between the police and the skateboarders. It was a situation that, if you sit and look at it dispassionately, with 20/20 hindsight and from 12 months' distance, you can see where things could have been done that would have changed the dynamics that led to a situation where an officer was assaulted and young people ended up in court. The young people could have made different decisions and the police could have made different decisions. Mediators or adult intervenors would have been very useful in that situation. But we have no resources. The resources of the community are just stretched to their limits.

One of the things we did with a job employment program last summer was to put youth workers on the street in the summer at night so that they would be available to counsel young people. It was a short-term project and was very successful. But that was only done through the assistance of a short-term student employment program. That's the sort of program that should be out there all of the time, and we don't have it, other than in the summer months.

Mr. Gallaway: The third recommendation in your list on page 2 of the brief talks about the availability of treatment. You may have seen the report in The Globe and Mail last Saturday that indicated a very high percentage of adults who are incarcerated are not receiving any treatment whatsoever. It's a very difficult situation, and it's probably more distressing to think that there are young people whose lives could be turned around if there were a treatment available. Is this a problem that is pretty general here on Prince Edward Island, that there are no accessible programs or treatment facilities readily available?

Ms Sherman: It's very difficult to get into treatment if you're not already involved in the system. For instance, I have an 18-year-old son too. If I thought there was a problem for which I wanted to get treatment for him, I would find it very difficult. Once he was involved in the system, it would be easier to access that.

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We do actually have a case here on the island, which happened last year, where a young girl, who had a horrendous life history, who had been abused and who had grown up in very unfortunate circumstances, went to youth court. She appeared in youth court on a charge of assault. She was sentenced to a time in the youth centre. The judge made the comment that he was sentencing her to serve time in closed custody because she would get the treatment she needed. It was the only way he could be sure she would get the treatment she needed. That's very unfortunate.

I think the treatment should be readily available to young people when they need it. Certainly if we are sentencing young people, we are hoping rehabilitation is, I would think, the primary purpose for sentencing them because they are not going to spend the rest of their life in custody. It's very important they receive the treatment they need so they can be rehabilitated. I think that's essential.

The Chair: Thank you. This will conclude the formal part of our discussion.

I know your supporters and your moral supporters are here. I think probably all of the members are willing to stay around for a little while in order to chat individually with them.

For the benefit of the public who are present, I'd like to indicate that we have so far very much enjoyed our visit to Charlottetown.

This is the conclusion of our hearings here. However, this afternoon we will be visiting the family committee young offenders custody program in Summerside before we leave from Charlottetown to go to Sydney for our visit there.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank the people of Prince Edward Island for giving us this insight. I want to thank this particular group for an excellent presentation. We enjoyed hearing from you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.

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