Open Letter to the Justice Minister

Dear Mr. Toews,

Oh how silly you are Mr. Toews. You’re at it again and you know how much I love your shenanigans!! I was reading a quick blurb online and low and behold my favourite person appeared to be in the news. That is you Mr. Vic Toews our Justice Minister to this land. Why do I love you so much?? Well to be honest who doesn’t love an idiot who is paid more than he deserves!

Today you announced that you will sit down with the provincial attorney generals and go over some legal things. One of them being my favourite topic Youth Justice. You are proposing, yet again, to toughen the youth justice act.

Was the supreme court ruling on not using sentences as a deterrence principal not suffice for you? No, you’re going to go above the heads of the judges who sit on the panel which governs the laws of our country and say “Screw you and those youth bastards.”

What is it with the youth population that you have a problem with? I just don’t get it. Yes I know they’re getting to be more of a bastard population. They can be rude and defiant and if you ask me royal pains in the asses. But I still enjoy their youthfulness and passion. Maybe that’s why I work around them because they have such a naivety about them. Either way you’ve got to get over this hate on the youth population.

What will toughening the youth justice act do for the nation anyways? By toughening it they’re going to create more problems financially. You’re co-worker Stockwell Day and your boss Stephen Harper have both stated this. How are the provinces suppose to account for this? Courts are going to be flooded with cases of really stupid and petty criminal attempts. Kids are going to go through the legal system when really they need to be going through the Ministry that deals with families and children. I believe that would be the Ministry of Child and Family Services. Money should be put there instead of putting it in locking down kids. Prevention goes a long way in keeping kids out of courts. But what do I know, I’m just a lowly child and youth care worker.

I also heard a rumour you were going to use the “three strikes and you’re out” rule of thumb that California is soooooo happy to be using. Lets look at the statistics of that state and their implementation of the three strikes and you’re out rule.

California spent 5.8 billion in the past 15 years building on their prison industrial complex. They continue to be the largest and overcrowded prison system in the US. They estimate that it’s going to cost roughly 6.1 billion over the next decade to maintain the current level of overcrowding. Money that could be spent much better if you ask me.

Let’s look at the prison population of the US. 70% of the prisoners are illiterate. What’s that you say, you don’t care. That’s right your federal funding counterpart thought it was a waste of money to put into adult literacy programs. I forgot about that. So instead of using a couple of million of dollars to fund a program that ensure some level of success for an adult you are willing to spend a couple of billions to lock them up. That’ll really teach them to read. Another statistic for you. Roughly 200 000 of the folks in the prisons in the US have a serious mental illness. What’s that you say. Slash cuts to social funding the conservative way. That’ll really teach those crazy folks to get their lives in order and manage it better. 60-70% of the population have a substance abuse issue. What’s that you say, get tougher on criminals who have a health problem. That’ll really teach those drunks and drug addicts to get their life together. Much the same as those crazy people. 80% of the population in California is Afro-American. What’s that you say, screw those folks of colour or different ethnicity. Well that’s just not very nice of you. Much like the US our prison population consists of a large number of Aboriginals and other minorities. That’s just the adult population.

In the US and their tough on crime act, juvenile delinquents—as that is what they are called there—are treated similar to the adult population. This kind of treatment goes against the very nature of the UN Rights of the Child convention around unfair and unusual punishment. According the NY Times columnist Adam Liptak in 2005 roughly 9700 American youth were serving life sentences for which about a fifth do not have a chance of parole. Until recently the US even attached a death penalty some of those youth criminals. The US does not take into account the special developmental considerations around youth criminality. This is where Canada can take a leading role. Yet you Mr. Toews have chosen to hone in on youth criminals and make examples out of them when really you should be educating and encouraging growth. Oh yeah that’s right, according to Amnesty International the only political party in Canada that wants to bring back the death penalty is the Reform, opps I mean Alliance, opps the New Conservatives.

If your government is so worried about misspending tax payer dollars why in the hell are they using it to lock people down. What a waste if you ask me. As a tax paying and practising voting citizen I reserve the right to tell you what a complete and utter waste of my resources. I want you to spend my money much more appropriately and using it to fund super jails or other holding tanks is not a good way to spend it.

Oh and Mr. Toews, can you please pass on a message to your boss. He said the following:

“For years, one of the defining features of this country has been our
historically low rates of crime. The relative safety of big cities like Toronto
compared to their American counterparts has been a difference of which we've
been rightly proud. But rising levels of gun, gang and drug crime shown that we
cannot take this for granted.”

I live in Toronto and feel just as safe as I did coming from my small town Woodstock. The gun, gang and drug crime he’s talking about for the most part stays in the little area of the city. Instead of locking those kids up, lets get funding into social service programs or prevention programs for the at-risk neighbourhoods. If he needs an example of what funding for at-risk kids can do tell him to have a look at the Pathways to Education program run out of Regent Park. That program is arming the kids with educational tools instead of guns.

Sincerely your biggest fan!