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Youth Justice: Grown-up solutions needed

With all of the recent media attention focused on youth crime one could almost be excused for thinking this might be some disturbing new trend. It isn't. Kids have been out of control for some time now.

If some in our society are just waking up to the realization children are out there doing horrific things, perhaps these people should pick up a mirror and take a good hard look at part of the problem.

No doubt wanting to be seen as compassionate and enlightened, many Canadians have allowed themselves to be seduced by the feel-good argument that punishing criminals was somehow wrong-headed. Much to the delight of society's worst, otherwise sensible citizens sat on their hands as our courts, under the guise of "progressive" thinking, marched inexorably to the left of common sense. As the courtroom focus seemed to shift from if they did it to why they did it, every thug and cheat was portrayed as a victim, failed by society; each crime a cry for help. Right across the board, all across the land, sentencing philosophies were enacted by judicial appointees known to share the same pious bias as their political masters.

Predictably, bad guys and their lawyers took advantage of the soft underbelly of such enlightened conceit and, well, welcome to now.

While some point to an almost systemic failure in our court system vis-a-vis the concepts of personal accountability and deterrence, nowhere is this more irresponsibly evident than in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Brought to you by the same smug, left-leaning types who wanted to make spanking illegal, this fetid bit of social engineering has all but succeeded in making personal accountability a thing of the past for today's youth.

The ever-so-predictable result of this philosophical brain fart is that we, as a society, are now dealing with growing numbers of underage criminals. "Empowered" by the knowledge they can pretty much do as they please, these aren't the bad kids of 30 years ago. In this city there are groups of young teens roaming the predawn streets looking for victims to stomp. Kids as young as 12 are stealing cars, dealing drugs, starting fires and carrying weapons. They must be dealt with.

Organized, serious criminal activity by young people is a real and growing problem which can not be wished away or ignored. Patting underage criminals on the head and making them promise to behave simply hasn't worked and the time has long passed for pet theories.

Youth crime must be seen for what it really is, crime. The young people breaking the law need to be seen for what they really are, criminals. People who deliberately and repeatedly break the law are criminals, regardless of their age, and must be held to account. The theory that young people might not understand the true consequences of their actions is interesting but ultimately irrelevant. The same is probably true for many adult offenders who are often not the sharpest tacks in the box.

The bottom line is accountability, personal as well as societal. We are accountable to society and society is accountable to us. It is one of the fundamental principles which underlie the rule of law and should not be waived simply because of a birth certificate. If a person, regardless of age, chooses not to practise personal accountability where the law is concerned, that is their failure. When we as a society choose not to hold them accountable for that decision, it is our failure.

As a wise lady once said, "Children need to be made to behave, they can figure out how to be bad on their own." We need to start making children behave again, no doubt this will involve discipline. Hopefully we as a society are mature and grown-up enough to do so.

Gord MacFarlane
13 November 2006

http://winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/MacFarlane_Gord/2006/11/13/2338631.html

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