Pubdate: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2006 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) COURTS WILL NOT SOLVE CHILDHOOD DELINQUENCY The federal justice minister wants to put 10-year-old kids in jail? Vic Toews said no such thing. But that was the sensational spin some people were quick to put on comments by the Conservative minister on how to deal with children under 12 who commit crimes. What Toews did say is that we need a more satisfactory way to deal with serious delinquency by 10- and 11-year-olds, and that reducing the age of criminal responsibility from the current 12 is the way to do it. If there is indeed a problem with rising rates of delinquency among 10- and 11-year-olds, we can't agree that bringing young children before the courts and branding them as criminals would be the answer. Among our objections to the idea is this most basic of questions: Exactly how would such a measure possibly improve the situation? Toews specifically alleged that youngsters who are beyond the arm of the law are being used by "gangs and drug couriers" to commit burglaries and other serious crimes. "By the time they're 12, they're already criminals." That sounds scary, but how big a problem are we talking about here? Is it growing? Surely, we shouldn't be making justice policy on the basis of headlines about the latest heinous crime by a pre-teen hoodlum. Statistics Canada doesn't have numbers on crime committed by children under 12, because such people currently cannot be charged. But a leading expert in the field told The Gazette yesterday: "I know of no evidence that would suggest that there is an increase, alarming or otherwise, in crime (serious or otherwise) by 10- and 11-year olds." Anthony Doob, a University of Toronto criminologist, added, "When I have looked systematically at the data, what I have found is that there are, very occasionally, serious violent crimes committed by those under 12. But the numbers are exceedingly small, especially in comparison to those in their mid-teens." For those young kids who do persist in committing serious crimes, Toews maintains, "we need a special way for the courts to intervene in a positive fashion in the lives of these children in some type of treatment program." We heartily agree with that sentiment once the words "for the courts" are excised from Toews's sentence. A stern lecture from a judge and an order to remand a child to a treatment program will not magically create more or better resources to help these kids. Instead, it's the provinces that need to act to direct more money to youth protection agencies, mental-health services and schools to respond to these children. We know, for example, there's a crying need for better resources at Quebec's Direction de la protection de la jeunesse. Improving the behaviour of troubled kids depends on better social services and especially on better treatment, not on the courts. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman