REINTEGRATION
NARRATOR The YCJA recognizes that young people
coming out of custody will need assistance
in successfully reintegrating into the community.
Therefore, part of every youth custody sentence
must include a set period of community supervision.
A youth worker helps the young person plan
for their reintegration into the community
and provides support to help ensure a successful
transition back into society.
YOUTH COURT WORKER MARK CHERRINGTON When you
are dealing with a young person you are usually
dealing with the family unit to see what's
causing this young person to come in conflict
with the law. Some of these young people are
very marginalized in a lot of negative risk
factors built within their lives. So they
come from single families, poverty, they have
been victims of abuse, abandonment, mental
health issues, families entrenched in gangs
and you have to start weeding out the negative
risk factors in their lives to help steer
that young person into a meaningful contributing
member of society. And that takes time, that
takes resources, that takes patience, and
again The Youth Criminal Justice Act in my
opinion, really recognizes that aspect.
YOUTH CENTRE MANAGER ANISE CAISSIE It includes
a lot of community partners and we try to
involve as much as we can so the young person
has support going out and to try to make it
successful for that young person to reintegrate
in the community.
YOUNG OFFENDER Some people think I need to
be in jail, that's fine, and I think that
ah jail didn't work for me before and this
program has actually helped me.
NARRATOR She was serving time for credit card
fraud and though she has completed her probation,
she comes back to the reintegration support
program often. She can't change her past,
but she says it's time to do something about
her future.
YOUNG OFFENDER You know I see something better
in the people around me and I look up to a
lot of a lot of older people you know from
here and out there. I just see ladies with
their life together, they got stuff going
for them and I look up to that and I want
something like that.
CROWN PROSECUTOR KEVIN MOTT We have all seen
the prison movies of releasing someone with
a new suit of clothes and two bucks in their
pocket. It doesn't work because people are
then without resources in the community. So
the gradual approach of having someone in
a treatment facility for a period of time,
then released to an open custody. There have
been some people that have actually ended
up with job skills as a result of participating
in a community service work project. And those
job skills become transferable into the non-criminal
world.
LEGAL CLINIC DIRECTOR C.J. GRANT We cannot
do the work for the young persons. We're here
to help them to make choices. We can list
for them what the pros and cons are for decisions
that they make but they have to, in the end,
make that choice for themselves.
