By Sheila Whittaker
The region may lose a new pilot program for youth justice committees if additional funding is not found by April.
The committees are alternative measures for judging and penalizing young offenders who commit non-violent crimes, diverting them from courts and allowing for community-based solutions. The committee is ready to go, but has yet to hear its first case.
This year, the local office of the provincial Ministry of Community and Social Services gave $2,500 from its existing budget to get the program started. There have been no promises of additional funding from the provincial government.
“It was very clearly one-shot seed money,” says Judy Perley, a member of the committee and an employee of the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa-Carleton.
“There will be a problem if no local money is found again,” says Carole Eldridge who is helping to co-ordinate the project as the head of the Dispute Resolution Centre for Ottawa-Carleton.
Currently, money is needed to adminstrate the program by organizing the meeting of the young offender and the committee, process the outcomes, and keeping track of statistics for the province.
As the program begins, resources are already stretched. Much of the administrative work is done by volunteers, and Eldridge works much more than the one day per week for which she is paid.
The region is one of six sites chosen to pilot the program in Ontario.
The committees, made up of community volunteers, bring together the young offender, the victim and their supporters.
The youth must accept responsibility for the crime and apologize. All parties then work out a suitable solution together.
These committees are an example of restorative justice, according to Dave Farthing executive director of the YouCan youth centre on Preston street. He says the youth, the victim and the community benefit.
“Unfortunately, funding could be completely eliminated and few people would know about it,” he says.
Farthing says few people know these committees exist, what they do, and how they ultimately save money while getting better results.
Rob Paiment, author of a report on youth justice committees for Justice Canada, found underfunding of administration was a common problem in Manitoba and other western provinces which have been using youth justice committees since the late 1960s.
For the Ottawa-Carleton project, 26 members were sworn in after being interviewed, reference checked, and trained in October.
The committee would be used if, for example, a youth was caught creating graffiti on the side of a store. If it was the youth’s first offence, the youth could be referred by the police or the Crown to a youth justice committee, which would suggest possible solutions.
In such a case, the solution may be for the youth to paint over the graffiti. An agreement is signed by all parties, and the sanction must be completed within three months.
If the sanction is not completed — which rarely happens in jurisdictions where such committees exist — the case is sent back to the police or the courts to be dealt with traditionally.
“It’s easy for youth to be angry at the police or the court,” says Perly, a committee member. “It’s harder for them to be angry when they have to own up to a person they have wronged.”
Because this process is quicker than the courts and run on a volunteer basis, it ultimately saves the government money, says Perley.
“I’m hopeful that if the province sees the merits and effectiveness of the program they will provide some financial resources to provide administrative dollars.”