Nonetheless, I have resolved to make more personal visits to the courts to observe proceedings and gain a broader insight into the challenges they face.
Council's letter made reference to patterns that we sensed are possibly symptomatic of the current legislation and apparent hesitance to place custodial sentences on young repeat offenders. These include a perceived tendency and/or obligation to discount or render inadmissible the substantial cumulative records of young repeat offenders; a tendency to grant repeated escalating periods of probation or community-based sentencing, resulting in the immediate return of the young offender to the dysfunction of his or her existing situation, together with the transfer of supervisory responsibilities to the RCMP; the creative use of case law to complicate proceedings and exploit investigative and/or preparatory weaknesses; and repeated long-term adjournments whereby the offender is placed back on conditions between appearances, leading to further breach charges and additional appearances before the court. Unresolved charges subsequently accumulate, and the young offender now is dealing with many more charges than before.
Having not always witnessed the above-stated tendencies or patterns on a first-hand basis, I went in search of a regional example from court records available within the public domain that could serve to support council's concerns.
One example I encountered consisted of a formidable five pages of charges levelled upon one area individual covering a time period from November 2008 to February 2011 and representing some 53 individual charges. Eleven of the charges related to theft of a motor vehicle, sometimes over $5,000 and sometimes under or equal to $5,000. In most cases these motor vehicles appeared to be all-terrain vehicles. Many of the other 42 charges related to the reckless or haphazard operation of these same vehicles. While studying this young offender's record, I noted that this youth received a charge of impaired operation, blood alcohol over 0.08%, on September 12, 2008. This youth was not convicted until August 10, 2009, almost 11 months after the event.
In spite of a considerable previous record, this youth was sentenced to probation, with conditions, together with a one-year driving prohibition and the condition that the offender attend a treatment program. Through the ensuing year's driving prohibition, this offender then managed to accumulate no less than three additional all-terrain vehicle convictions, with fines, 20 Criminal Code convictions, and five charges under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, resulting in four convictions and one stay of proceedings.
This young offender's record actually continues with an additional 15 charges, and frankly, I must admit that I lost the audit trail. However, the portion of the trail that remained abundantly clear to me was that the majority of those stolen ATVs belonged to my friends and neighbours residing within the RM. The reckless and, on one occasion, the impaired use of these vehicles undoubtedly led to anxiety and loss of value for the owners, while posing a very real threat to public safety.
Clearly, this particular example of dysfunction in itself represents countless hours of preparation, research, and documentation as each of the 53 charges worked its way through the system. If cloned by even a small handful of similar-minded young offenders, the pattern could quickly overwhelm the limited resources of our local RCMP.
The point that RM 622 council wishes to make here is that we support the proposed overhaul of subclause 2(3) of the bill as it would potentially apply to chronic repeat young offenders.
Within the health system, there exists a program known, I believe, in general as “early intervention”. Such a program focuses on early detection and remediation of developmental issues in preschoolers. The program provides assistance to youngsters who have challenges related to such conditions as language development or, possibly, patterns of irregular speech. It seems logical that a program of early intervention would have many potential benefits for young repeat offenders and for society in general.
The need for intervention and meaningful remediation was addressed by the aforementioned Judge Allard in his CBC interview of December 15, 2010, in which he spoke of the need to address the separation of offenders from society where necessary to assist with meaningful rehabilitation of offenders. To be aware of the experience of our American neighbours, in this interview the reference was to the State of Texas, where it was found that mandatory sentences in and of themselves did not necessarily result in a decrease in the rate of crime.
Meanwhile, within our RM's jurisdiction, much of the probationary supervision of young offenders appears to default to the RCMP. Our council recognizes our local detachment's outstanding efforts in addressing the underlying conditions that contribute to the dysfunction of young repeat offenders. Our local detachment's work includes round table discussions with community leaders, promotion of social reform and family unit counselling, facilitation of human resource teams that can contribute to positive youth development, and identification of strategies that discourage offenders and recognize positive attitudes and behaviour.
To summarize, I respectfully suggest that our RM council supports the principle of society's protection as a fundamental goal of legislative amendments; supports the simplification of rules to keep violent and repeat young offenders off the streets, when necessary, while awaiting trial; supports the concept of examining the pattern of escalating criminal activity to seek a custodial sentence when necessary; supports the imposition of custodial sentences for reckless behaviour that puts the lives and safety of others at risk; supports change to the youth bail system to stop the revolving door approach that can occur for some chronic offenders; and, finally, supports treatment programs and/or meaningful bail plans tailored to stop offending behaviour and address public safety concerns.
Amidst this request for orderly management and simplification of delivery, we recognize that the system must address the variable needs and the diversity that make this great nation who we are. In his book Bad Medicine: A Judge's Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community, retired Alberta provincial court judge John Reilly suggested that “The fundamental purpose of sentencing is that of contributing to a just, safe society”.
In this endeavour, please be assured that you have our respect and our support.
Thank you.