Pubdate: Tue, 04 Nov 2003
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Amy O'Brian, Vancouver Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

DEBATE ON LOCKING UP YOUTHS

B.C. Is Still More Than a Year From Legislating Secure Care

For more than five years, the provincial government has been hotly debating 
the idea of locking up high-risk youths for their own safety.

In that time, the concept, called secure care, has been studied by focus 
groups, analysed in government reports and lobbied for by parents, while 
hundreds of kids have remained or become addicted to drugs, been sucked 
into the sex trade or forced into a life of crime.

The controversial idea has caught on in Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and 
several states, but B.C. is more than a year away from legislating secure 
care, a tool that would allow parents and social workers to confine 
high-risk youth for their own safety.

The Secure Care Act was actually passed by the legislature in July 2000 but 
was never proclaimed into law by the outgoing NDP government, and fell on 
the cutting room floor when the Liberals were elected in 2001. The new 
majority government didn't abandon the concept, but decided to re-write the 
legislation.

Now, the ministry of children and family development is working on a public 
discussion paper that will be released later this fall. The draft bill will 
likely proceed to legislation by next spring and the ministry is planning 
to have at least one secure care facility up and running by early 2005.

But in the meantime, people like Diane Sowden are getting frustrated.

"Why do I base my beliefs in secure care so strongly?" asks Sowden, whose 
daughter became addicted to crack cocaine when she was 13.

"Because it's what my daughter said she needed. Now she tells me that. At 
the time, she says, she would have fought it tooth and nail."

Ten years after she first ran away, Sowden's 23-year-old daughter is still 
prostituting herself to buy drugs and has not called home since February.

"[My daughter] is extremely resentful and angry at the whole system because 
it allowed this to happen," Sowden said while sitting in her office at the 
Children of the Street Society in Coquitlam.

"If you asked her, 'Why did this happen?' she would say, 'Because it was 
allowed.' Very simplistic."

Sowden was a member of the NDP's secure-care working group, which toured 
cities and youth facilities across the country, talking to teens, parents, 
social workers, probation officers and community leaders about their views 
on secure care.

In 1998, the group published a report on its findings and made a series of 
recommendations to the province.

"Holding children and youth against their will is not a comfortable 
prospect for anyone," read a summary of the report. "At the same time 
however, the harming of children and youth through abuse of alcohol and 
other drugs and sexual exploitation cannot be tolerated."

The current provincial government agrees in principle with that statement, 
but decided to re-write the NDP's safe-care legislation to focus more 
specifically on sexually exploited children instead of all high-risk youth.

Tim Stevenson -- who is now a Vancouver city councillor -- chaired the 
NDP's secure-care working group and spent nearly two years travelling the 
country to examine youth facilities in other provinces.

He is puzzled by the Liberals' decision to rewrite the bill and said 
further delays in enacting the legislation will mean more children and 
youth will be lost to drugs, prostitution and the streets.

"I think it was a very good piece of legislation and it was a piece of 
legislation that would have saved a lot of lives," Stevenson said of the 
original Secure Care Act.

"[The Liberals] are reinventing the wheel and, in the meantime, there is 
enormous damage being done."

Alan Markwart, the assistant deputy minister for child and youth mental 
health and the youth justice division, said there were three problematic 
areas of the former legislation that had to be changed to make safe care 
viable. (Safe care is the term adopted by the Liberals, but is 
interchangeable with secure care.)

First, the NDP's proposed tribunal system of deciding who would be eligible 
for secure care was "very expensive" and "completely unnecessary," Markwart 
said.

Secondly, he said, the scope of the original legislation was too broad, as 
it included all kinds of high-risk kids, not just those exploited by the 
sex trade.

And, lastly, the NDP's proposed length of stay at a safe-care facility -- 
from 30 to 90 days -- was considered too long.

"There isn't any scientific answer to how long is the necessary period of 
time, but 90 days is probably too long," Markwart said. "A 30-day period is 
probably all that's required. But that's not fixed in stone."

Narrowing the scope of who is eligible for safe care and shortening the 
maximum length of stay are simply ploys to save money, Sowden said. She 
would like to see legislation that would allow the province to hold a child 
for their own safety for as long as is necessary and appropriate.

Sowden also worries that if the legislation encompasses only sexually 
exploited youths, certain populations won't be served.

"What about the kid that's drug addicted?" Sowden asked.

"What is sexual exploitation in the eyes of the ministry? Are we talking 
about a child that is on an actual stroll, controlled by a pimp ... Or are 
we talking about the 13-year-old that is at a party, exchanging sexual 
favours for their drugs? It's pretty vague to me."

Dave Dickson, a Vancouver police officer who has worked with youths on the 
Downtown Eastside for more than 20 years, knows that safe care is a 
controversial issue, but believes that in dire circumstances, locking a 
child up is the only way to save his or her life.

"The fact is, kids are dying out there and this isn't about locking up kids 
with mohawks, it's about keeping kids alive until we can get them the help 
they deserve. If you don't think kids are dying, I'd be happy to invite you 
to the next funeral," he said.

"Kids are dying from drug overdoses and kids deserve the right to be 
protected."

Sowden gets some hope from seeing public opinion move towards viewing drug 
addiction as a disease, but said society is still a long way from medically 
treating addiction as a life-threatening disease.

"If my daughter had cancer and refused treatment, would my government not 
step in? If my daughter refused a blood transfusion, wouldn't my government 
step in?" Sowden asked.

"It's illegal to commit suicide and that's what these young kids are doing."

Markwart said part of the reason safe care is being so carefully and 
deliberately planned is that it's a "lightning rod" of an issue.

"It's a really controversial issue," he said "You find people who are 
wildly opposed to it."

Markwart said some aboriginal groups are vehemently opposed to the idea 
because of their histories with residential schools.

"I'm certain it will cause some angst and controversy among aboriginal 
groups because there is a historical reality around residential schools," 
he said.

But the B.C. Civil Liberties Association responded in 1999 to the NDP's 
report and concluded that secure care was "worthy of [its] support."

In its written response, the association put limitations on its support of 
the bill, including a condition that a continuum of detox and treatment 
services for youth be in place before making secure care available. It also 
took the position that secure care should only be an option for kids under 16.

"As with child porn, we would take the position that children/youth do not 
have the capacity to consent to child prostitution/addictive behaviour that 
raises the need for secure care," the paper said.

"Moreover, in order to 'free' children from these harms, society needs to 
intervene in their lives so that these children/youth can develop in a way 
that they are able to make informed choices about their private lives and 
participate in civil society."

As the discussion and debate over safe care continues, officers like 
Dickson, parents like Sowden and politicians like Stevenson grow 
increasingly frustrated that lives are being lost while bureaucrats 
continue to study something that has been studied for years and has proved 
beneficial in other provinces.

"There was urgency to the situation [five years ago]," Stevenson said. "We 
need this as soon as possible."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager