‘6 — Sunday, December 7, 1997 — Nofth Shore News

“HE frustrations of Robert
Weber are shared by a !ot of
people.

The North Vancouver resident is a
corrections officer at Burnaby Youth
Secure Custody Centre. In a Dec. 3
News story, he discusses what it’s like
to work with youth gone wrong.

Real wrong.

The picture he paints is far from
pretty. It is a disturbing reflection of
our times and the aimless fury at its

north shore news

VIEWPOINT

rrections

folk across the land already know:
youth have no respect for the law
because they face few real consequences
for their actions.

Missing from the system for a start
is community embarrassment that
would take the swagger out of young
hoods’ steps —- embarrassment in the
form of publicity in having their names
published in newspapers along with
the crimes they committed; embarrass-
ment in the form of actually having to
confront the victims of their crimes and

culturally bankrupt heart.
_ Weber points to _ television,
Hollywood and the industry of vio-
lence-based entertainment the two
deliver endlessly into the homes and
minds of youth. He says youth are
starving for direction, but get all too
little from parents or other adults.
And Weber reports from the delin-
quent froat what most right-thinking

offer apologies; embarrassment in the
form of some kind of corporal punish-
ment in full pwblic view.

For people -like Weber who work
within the system and see its results
first hand, it’s not hard to see why their
frustration is growing. They know it is
not working for anyone on either side
of the criminal justice fence.

Teen monsters must be terrified

YOUTH violence — the crime
flavor of the month since the
ghastly story of murdered
Victoria teenager Reena Virk —
isn’t getting the

clear brain-work it

demands.

« THE North Shore News Free Speech Defence
Pund is closing i in on $150,000.
_ » To press time Friday, donations from over 2,000 News
- readers and free speech supporters to the fund stood at
$144,366. Legal fees expended thus far by the News have
: already exceeded $200,000.
All funds received will help defray the legal costs faced
by the News in its battle with the Human Rights
‘Tribunal over a complaint laid against the news-
.. paper and its columnist Doug Collins by the
Canadian Jewish Congress.
The hearing into the matter, which began on
May 12, concluded on June 27.
The decision from tribunal chairman Nitya lyer
was handed down on Nov. 12. Full coverage of
the decision appeared in the Nov. 14 News.
Iyer found that Collins’ column was not hateful,
but also ruled that, while the legislation under
which the News was prosecuted infringes upon
-the Charter’s guarantee of free expression, it was
constitutionally valid.
Extra copies of the News’ Free Speech
Supplement, which was originally published in
the Aug. 20 News, are available at the News
offices.
a Another excerpt from the thousands of respon-
~ dents to the cause:

The basic concept
being that the minority
of teens who are vio-
lence-prone must be
made so terrified of the
consequences if caught,
that they'll think several
dozen times over before
lifting, a finger (or a
boot) against any fellow
human being. First, however, a little sepa-
rating out.

Eighty-five ro 90% of today’s teens are.
good kids who'd never intentionally ‘
inflict physical damage on anyone.

A few may occasionally stray from the
straight and narrow by way of a little van-
dalizing, rowdy partying or minor
shoplifting. It was for these that the
Young Of fenders Act was conceived: uy
them in special youth courts; spare them
and their families shaming publicity for

-00a what is hopefully a minor, once-in-a-life-

“I have watched this human rights bureaucracy grow to time offence. Divert them or sentence
where it seems to usurp the courts and is not answerable to them lightly to community work and
our elected politicians. Enough is enough.” restitution. Couldn't agree more.

— Elien Butler of B Rabbit Lake, Saskatchewan. But for anything worse — break-ins,
car thefts (which can kill innocent people
as well as the thieves), home invasions,
aggravated assault, manslaughter and
murder — throw the book at the young
monsters. Names published and families
identified. Accused held in pre-trial cus-

Donations to the fund an be sent to: 1139 Lonsdale
Ave., North Vancouver, V7M 2H4. Cheques should be
made out to the North Shore News Free Speech Defence
Fund.

~— wenshaw@direct.ca

north shore’

North Short News, f sunded m 4969 as an
independent suburd in neuspaper and quatied
undet Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of Be
‘Exase Tax Act, 15 published each Wernesday.
Friday and Sunday by North Shove Free Press
{Ud. and destributed to every door on the North

MIEEMEB CERES
Manga Sales & Marteting Decor P Pi Asrrok

ubii
“gee-nrat (177 900-0511 (319) 985-2131 (101)

oe .
Paotography Manager
905-2131 (160)

Bott
Sastribution Manager Creative Services Manager

9OS-1337 (124) een (127)
61.587 (average prculation, Wednesday. Friday & Sunday)

tody without bail. Trial in adult court
from age 12 on. If parents can’t control
them, society must protect itself.

In sentencing convicted juveniles,
adult court judges would be allowed

some leeway as regards
the length of jail terms.
In cases of assault,
manslaughter and mur-
der they might also be
empowered to order, in
appropriate cases, a
medically supervised,
Singapore-type flogging
as part of the sentence.
The biggest change,
however -— as
Corrections Officer
Robert Weber coura-
geously pointed out in the News last
Wednesday — has to come in the institu-
tions to which these boy and girl thugs
are committed.

At the Burnaby Youth Secure Custody
Centre (formerly Willingdon Youth
Detention Centre), for example, the
teenage “residents” have no counselling
directly relevant to their crimes.

In “school” they work at their own
pace. They enjoy the gym, pool, exercise
room and lounges — where they can
spend every evening watching violeat TV
shows and playing similar video games.

What they need instead is at {cast a
modified boor camp regime: carly morn-
ing cold showers; tough phys-ed work-
outs; loss of ¢ good conduct points for
sloppy school work; counselling on their
individual problems in place of Rambo-
style movies and work details instead of
Nintendo. Make them so healthily tired
that their only thought by 9 p.m. is to

seck their beds and drop asleep.

Weber knows whereof he speaks with
these young savages who now enter and.
are eventually discharged from the centre
still without the slightest respect for soci-
ety or its rules.

“The only time Pve seen [them] hum:
ble is when I escort them to the hospi- --
tal,” he says. “They wear feg irons and
handcuffs, while they sit in the waiting
room, people stare. It’s the only time
they’re embarrassed.”

Embarrass them a whole fot more, say
I. And keep the slow learners in “tough
love” facilities for as long as it takes for
them get the score.

Te will cost money, of course. But not
nearly as much over the long haul as hav-
ing them return bricfly to society, time
and again, as unrepentant repeat offend-
ers. .
Paint your humble scribe, if you must,
as a vicious, aging redneck. But remem-
bering beaten-up Reena Vick —- her arms
and neck then broken to prevent her -
swimming as she was tossed into the
slimy waters of Victoria’s Gorge — what's -
YOUR solution to this increasing kind of
teen violence?

o00
MANY HAPPY RETURNS of -

today, Dec. 7, to my favorite fc Bepholo-

gist, West Van's Renate Griffiths — just

don’t reveal your character flaws to her

by putting anything in handwriting! ..

And morc happy birthday wishes this ‘day

to’ West Van Kiw: anian Brock Webher.- -
Q

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Reaching
down and lifting others up is the best

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters must include your name,
tull address & telephone number.

VIA e-mail: trenshaw @ direct.ca

Comptrotier Managing Editor
905-2131 (133) 985-2131 (116)

Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

Display & Fisal Estate Fax
Mewszoom Fax
Classified, Accounting
& Maia Difice Fax

Michael Becker - News Editor
985-2131 (114)
Andrew BicCredie -
965-2131 (47)

The North Shore Hews Is published by North Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Peter Spock, from 4239 Lonsdale Aveeue Werth Vancouver, B.C., V7M 2it4