Tories Slash 36 million in funding for Young Offenders

I was so overwhelmed by emotion when I read the following article that I had to post about it! The original article can be found here:

http://bit.ly/NiCvbb.

Essentially the Tories have slashed funding for the supervision and rehabilitation of Young Offenders. It equates to $36 million in cuts and if your heads aren't shaking I don't know what else to say.

For starters, Beth Alkenbrack, a social worker, had the following to say:

            “It costs less than $10,000 a year to service a youth with me, and if they’re in a youth justice custody facility, it’s going to cost a minimum of $150,000 a year.”

If this is an accurate portrayal of the cost differential I am once again speechless. How could it possibly be so? I know first hand that the majority of the work I do with homeless and at-risk youth is all charitable work at this point, and the impact that we have had thus far is incredible. The most amazing part is the only person it cost was me, and it could only be measured in time!

What if we actually had greater ties to the community, and what if we had more volunteers from within that community that decided it was time to make a difference. Do we really not have an hour a week? That is all it would take to make a difference. Spending some quality time with a youngster who has been isolated and alone. Someone who is afraid. What typically do we expect from young children who are essentially little animals who are let out of cages? If we have youngsters that are devout of trust and support from the adults in their lives, the results are some very under equipped and very scared youths. Have you ever tried to coax a young puppy out of its hiding spot? Have you ever seen a kitten back itself into a corner while hissing? That's because they are unsure and lacking trust! Why is it so difficult for us to understand that the same thing happens to our children? We are tossing our children aside and labelling them as at-risk, or mentally challenged just because they are scared? When a child is scared shouldn't we expect them to act like an animal and gnarl there teeth, puff their chests out, and try to look as intimidating and scary as possible.

In reality that is all they are doing, they are trying to show you their strength based on things they have seen, when in actuality they are begging you to come and put your arm around them, and ask them if they are ok. Remember that hissing kitten I referred to, well I bet that most of us who encounter this scenario are very patient, very calm, and we wait until that kitten is ready. How come when we see a child do this, our reaction is more along the lines of asking them once to come out, and then most likely insulting them and walking away? "Fine, you want to be a scared little baby, enjoy your time, see you when you come out." Does that sound more familiar or typical to you?

How do we expect anything to get better while we continue to sit by and watch as our children just fall through the cracks? This is the time when we need more funding, more volunteers, more education, and more programming to deal with our growing population and increased demand. Yet instead we are making cuts. Is this the government you support? Maybe you don't care because you don't have kids, maybe you don't care because you think your kids won't ever become at-risk, or maybe its just that you aren't even aware? Whatever the case may be, I implore you to try a different route. If it's not close enough to home yet, why not look at a young kid from the neighbourhood, or a family members child, and recognize how easily their world could get flipped upside down in a matter of moments. I bet you'd care if your son was in a car at the wrong time, and with the wrong people, and he was charged with all the others. I'm pretty sure you would want as much funding as possible for your child who now has to be rehabilitated because the court system and society has labeled him!

Here are a few of my favourite highlights from the article:

This $36-million cut was not highlighted in the recent federal budget. It was not discussed with the agencies that provide these important services to troubled youth. Provincial ministers, who are the federal government’s partners in keeping Canada safe, were not consulted. The cut was made public last week in an announcement masquerading as good news.

“The government of Canada announces continued support to youth justice services,” the official news release stated. Sounds good. Too bad that $141.7 million in annual funding is a 20 per cent reduction in spending. Calling a cut “continued support” is misleading, at best.

Cutting this funding is a short-sighted policy. That, unfortunately, makes it typical of the Harper government’s approach to battling crime. Rather than spend $10,000 to provide high-risk youth with the counselling and support that can keep them on the straight and narrow, the government seems to prefer to spend more than $110,000 to lock them up.

I would like to think we are getting to the point where we are actually starting to be a lot more aware of our surroundings and people are not so easily misled. It's time we come together as a community again and determine what is right and what is wrong for us and our families. The worst part about it is that the majority of us probably don't even know about these cuts. We need to do better, we need to show our children that to err is human, to forgive is divine! Not only that, but as humans we were made to make mistakes, and if I've said it once, I'll say it a million times, we are not defined by how many mistakes we make, we are defined by what we do after!

As always I encourage your comments and support on these issues!