Decades ago, I covered a criminal trial in New Liskeard in what we used to call magistrate’s court.
The perpetrator was a 16- or 17-year-old named Lonnie. At that
time, when there was much more free speech than nowadays, I was able to
use his name in the newspaper and even talk to him directly.
He was an interesting cat, at first skittish about seeing his name in print and the Crown recounting, and my reporting, on his grandiose criminal schemes. Later, he expressed pride in his notoriety.
His great desire was to get a sentence to an adult institution “because I could learn a lot more there.”
And by that he didn’t mean woodworking.
Lonnie came to mind dipping into three volumes (two weren’t readily available) of the massive five-volume report on the roots of youth violence commissioned by the Liberal government and chaired by old-time politicos former chief justice Roy McMurtry and former speaker of the Legislature Alvin Curling.
The pair identify as “immediate risk factors” for youth the following: alienation, low self-esteem, lack of empathy, impulsivity, belief that one is being oppressed or held down unfairly, being unheard, and lacking a sense of hope.
Unfortunately, they then add that “many” of the youth who fit the above criteria won’t indulge in violence “because no triggering event or circumstances will occur to unleash their feelings or because society manages to intervene in time.” Which means exactly what? one wonders.
The report actually dismisses the most obvious “triggering” events: status-seeking, influence from peers, especially in gangs, and the easy money of the drug culture.
The report argues that these gang and peer “associations are not roots; the roots are what often produced the deviant peers and made a particular youth susceptible to them.”
So what are the roots then?
Despite listing 14 theories and numerous sub-theories on the roots of youth violence, the report finally falls back on the usual suspects.
At fault are poverty, racism, poor community design in housing, transportation and recreational facilities, non-inclusive education, family issues (but specifically not fatherless black families), mental health, lack of economic opportunity, “denial of the youth voice,” inadequate support for immigrants, and of course, the justice system.
But what else might one expect from two tired 1970s politicians like McMurtry and Curling, with their tired 1970s ideas of the world?
About the justice system, they say that it shows a “lack of strategic thinking” and co-ordination in tackling youth violence. In fact, they criticize the system for the “counterproductive ways” in which it actually stimulates youth violence. This includes “over-criminalization,”where there is “excessive reliance on the justice system for minor matters that do not involve violence.”
Front line police especially, but also correctional officers and courtroom officials, are chastised for too often indulging in “overly-aggressive, belittling, discriminatory, and other inappropriate conduct” when they deal with the young, particularly “minority youth.”
Neither “minor matters” or “minority youth” are defined, and the caveat about violence rings hollow in the overall context of a report that never allocates any responsibility to perpetrators for their actions.
Nor does the report demonstrate where the system over-criminalizes. Since current justice dogma stresses rehabilitation over punishment, it must by definition be more lenient than severe.
The report contains several other curious anomalies.
For example, robbery and extortion in schools, which anecdotes I’ve heard suggests is a widespread problem, is dismissed without citing any evidence as “much less common” than physical assaults, while simultaneously conceding it affects a “significant portion of Ontario youth.”
The report naturally commends the Liberal government for gutting the Safe Schools Act because it’s (mythical) zero tolerance policy on violence in schools had a “disproportionate impact on racialized and marginalized students.”
Yet not an empathic word appears about the victims of that violence - despite the review being set up in the first place because of a school killing.
The report contains 30 recommendations, number one catching the flavour of many: “The Ontario government must immediately put in place a governance structure that can align and sustain over the long haul the work required from a dozen or more ministries, and at the same time can also support effective collaborative work with other orders of government and communities.”
Both these guys are former cabinet ministers, so they have to know the mindlessness of that recommendation.
Priorities they stress are $200 million for child mental health, creating community hubs in high crime areas, and various anti-racism indoctrination programs, including assessing police on their “competence on race.”
The latter probably results from the report’s fascination with “critical race theory,” an American-originated doctrine that essentially blames everything bad in life on white males.
In fact, the heart of this report is its denial of the existence of free will. No one in the McMurtry-Curling world ever actually makes choices. They are simply puppets dancing on social strings, buffeted by forces beyond their control.
Lonnie in New Liskeard would have laughed out loud.
Derek Nelson is a freelance writer who spent 19 years at Queen’s Park. His e-mail is [email protected].
