Jail those Kids

The youth crime rate has been going down steadily for 20 years, says Statistics Canada.

The Harper crackdown on kids is all about pandering to aging baby boomers.

The old folks are scared silly of teenagers attacking them – muggings, beatings, home invasions. Theytake what they see it on television for reality and they want Harper to jail the kids -- NOW.

Harper promises to get tough with bad kids – he calls it making them “realize they are responsible.” Teenagers charged with murder and other serious crimes will go to adult courts, face trial as adults, and do jail time as adults.

For instance, a 14-year old who gets a life sentence – 15 years or 25 years without parole – would serve the first five years in a youth detention centre, then at age 19 would be transferred to an adult penitentiary for the next 20 years. He’d be out at age 39 to start life over as a fine, upstanding member of society. . . .with the aid of the tooth fairy.

No more walking out after a third or two-thirds of the sentence, or with just a slap on the hand. You do the crime, you serve the time. Life means life. Let’s hear it for “Truth in Sentencing.”

The problem is Quebec, where they believe in trying to understand kids, and they have two generations showing their system works, with the lowest youth crime rate in the country.

Two elections ago, Harper’s justice minister at the time, Vic Toews, bragged about teaching kids a lesson by jailing them as young as 10 years old. It was a disaster.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe toured Quebec calling it “feeding fresh meat to prison pedophiles.” It cost Harper his majority.

The youth crime legislation is back again, tweaked a little. No more jailing 10-year olds of either sex. Harper hopes his new legislation will be more acceptable in Quebec, the main stumbling block for his youth crime campaign.

His Quebec lieutenant Christian Paradis spearheads the effort in French, along with a newly-appointed Conservative Quebec senator, Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, founder of the Association of Families of Murdered or Missing Persons.

Harper has given his youth crime law a catchy new label “Sebastien’s Law” to honor Sebastien Lacasse, a Quebec teenager killed in 2004 by a gang of young punks at a house party.

The Conservatives are serious about cracking down on kids.

Senator Boisvenu said in a media interview last week “somebody 16 or 17 is not a child, that’s an adult.”

Too young to vote, too young to buy liquor or cigarettes, but old enough for serious jail time. Serious stuff.

Keep yer nose clean, kid.