Zach LarkinsSPRUCEDALE
I recently wrote about a man who was convicted of first degree murder being tossed from his cushy jail cell at a Youth Detention Centre into a real, adult prison. This man was merely 17 days away from his 18th birthday when he savagely beat Terrence Ali to death. Ali's skull had become severed from his spine before he was dragged and dumped in Lake Ontario to drown. Ali's mother, Moonie Ali, was instrumental in having this man, now 21, removed from the youth centre and placed in an adult facility. Needless to say, the man is not impressed. I can see why.
At 18, you can be tried as an adult in Canada. Thus man was close enough that he should have been, but he caught a break and was tried as a juvenile. He had about three years left of his sentence to serve. He wanted to do it the easy way. We'll know by April 15 if he gets his wish or not, but it's easy to see why he would want to stay where he is.
The name of the jail is Sprucedale Youth Centre and it currently houses other inmates who should also be transferred due to their age. One staffer is especially galled that some are over 20, the age they are required to be transferred into adult prison by the Youth Criminal Justice Act unless the provincial director deems otherwise. "When they hit 18, you should kick them out and make them do some hard time," he argues. I can see no fault with that logic.
The teen who stabbed his brother Johnathon 71 times enjoys the swimming pool there. Kevin Madden, 19, who was sentenced as an adult last fall to life in prison for the vicious murder of his brother Johnathon. Yet the notorious killer is being allowed to serve his first two years in the youth facility despite court testimony that he is liable to bully younger boys. "The first thing he did when he got here was go for a swim," an employee says. A youth implicated in the Boxing Day shooting of Jane Creba has access to pottery class there. "We just got in one of the Boxing Day shooters," he says of a young offender charged in the death of 15-year-old Creba. "He's just laughing while he's at this Mickey Mouse joint. How does this stop them from killing again?"
These convicts and the others in their crowd might as well be at camp. Besides the indoor pool, there's the gym, weight room, tennis courts, shared kitchens, video games and late-night weekends when they're allowed to order in Kentucky Fried Chicken or McDonald's. If they get bored, there's the volleyball club, hockey program, arts and crafts and music appreciation. This is totally ridiculous. I was under the impression, mistakenly it seems, that these offenders are there to pay for their crimes, not have a vacation.
Consider what one staffer said, "Schools in the city are looking at having to close their pools while at our place, they can get their swimming lessons or go down for a recreational swim. I have to pay for my kids to take swimming lessons. These kids don't. They're given everything. It just makes you sick." "They get the kid glove treatment," complains the worker, who didn't want his name used. "It bothers a lot of us. It's pretty incredible as far as what these guys get. They're treated with a lot more dignity than their victims ever were." I'm sure we can all relate to that.
In this country, the left wing thinkers have made a conscious decision and convinced the rest of us not to be as punitive with youth criminals here as they are in the United States. They actually believe that there is still hope for these kids, that there remains a small window to reach them. If we just threw them into the adult population, there's little doubt they would come out the other side angrier and more bent on criminality than ever before. Hogwash. If that's true, then the people we send to prison as adults should never be allowed freedom again. All it will do is make them angrier and more bent on criminality than before, too. This flies in the face of the liberal bent that tells us rehab works. Sorry folks, you can't have it both ways. Either the convict becomes more resentful towards society or he has an epiphany which allows him the freedom to roam among society once more, totally rehabilitated. Which is it?
This employee argues, and I for one have to agree, that we have gone too far in the opposite direction. But it doesn't stop there. Oh no. For at least one inmate, anything even included sex. This 21-year-old is in Sprucedale for the 2003 Scarborough murder of his 17-year-old ex- girlfriend with a baseball bat. That didn't stop him from having a six-week-long affair last summer with one of the centre's supervisory officers. The employee was fired but Sprucedale authorities are not only letting the killer stay on, they are even recommending he be released into the community 10 months early because he's an "exemplary resident." You've really got to admire just how tough our criminal justice system is on young offenders, even those who grow old in kiddie jails. "He was out bowling with her during some of their encounters. How he was out of a maximum security jail bowling is beyond me," the staffer said. Bowling excursions have now been cancelled and all we can do is wait for the libs to cry unfair, inhumane, cruel and unusual treatment.
We all owe a debt to Moonie Ali for bringing all this to light. Let's hope enough people make enough of a stink to get things changed. In a hurry.
Sources: Michele Mandel Easy Time At Sprucedale The Toronto Sun
At 18, you can be tried as an adult in Canada. Thus man was close enough that he should have been, but he caught a break and was tried as a juvenile. He had about three years left of his sentence to serve. He wanted to do it the easy way. We'll know by April 15 if he gets his wish or not, but it's easy to see why he would want to stay where he is.
The name of the jail is Sprucedale Youth Centre and it currently houses other inmates who should also be transferred due to their age. One staffer is especially galled that some are over 20, the age they are required to be transferred into adult prison by the Youth Criminal Justice Act unless the provincial director deems otherwise. "When they hit 18, you should kick them out and make them do some hard time," he argues. I can see no fault with that logic.
The teen who stabbed his brother Johnathon 71 times enjoys the swimming pool there. Kevin Madden, 19, who was sentenced as an adult last fall to life in prison for the vicious murder of his brother Johnathon. Yet the notorious killer is being allowed to serve his first two years in the youth facility despite court testimony that he is liable to bully younger boys. "The first thing he did when he got here was go for a swim," an employee says. A youth implicated in the Boxing Day shooting of Jane Creba has access to pottery class there. "We just got in one of the Boxing Day shooters," he says of a young offender charged in the death of 15-year-old Creba. "He's just laughing while he's at this Mickey Mouse joint. How does this stop them from killing again?"
These convicts and the others in their crowd might as well be at camp. Besides the indoor pool, there's the gym, weight room, tennis courts, shared kitchens, video games and late-night weekends when they're allowed to order in Kentucky Fried Chicken or McDonald's. If they get bored, there's the volleyball club, hockey program, arts and crafts and music appreciation. This is totally ridiculous. I was under the impression, mistakenly it seems, that these offenders are there to pay for their crimes, not have a vacation.
Consider what one staffer said, "Schools in the city are looking at having to close their pools while at our place, they can get their swimming lessons or go down for a recreational swim. I have to pay for my kids to take swimming lessons. These kids don't. They're given everything. It just makes you sick." "They get the kid glove treatment," complains the worker, who didn't want his name used. "It bothers a lot of us. It's pretty incredible as far as what these guys get. They're treated with a lot more dignity than their victims ever were." I'm sure we can all relate to that.
In this country, the left wing thinkers have made a conscious decision and convinced the rest of us not to be as punitive with youth criminals here as they are in the United States. They actually believe that there is still hope for these kids, that there remains a small window to reach them. If we just threw them into the adult population, there's little doubt they would come out the other side angrier and more bent on criminality than ever before. Hogwash. If that's true, then the people we send to prison as adults should never be allowed freedom again. All it will do is make them angrier and more bent on criminality than before, too. This flies in the face of the liberal bent that tells us rehab works. Sorry folks, you can't have it both ways. Either the convict becomes more resentful towards society or he has an epiphany which allows him the freedom to roam among society once more, totally rehabilitated. Which is it?
This employee argues, and I for one have to agree, that we have gone too far in the opposite direction. But it doesn't stop there. Oh no. For at least one inmate, anything even included sex. This 21-year-old is in Sprucedale for the 2003 Scarborough murder of his 17-year-old ex- girlfriend with a baseball bat. That didn't stop him from having a six-week-long affair last summer with one of the centre's supervisory officers. The employee was fired but Sprucedale authorities are not only letting the killer stay on, they are even recommending he be released into the community 10 months early because he's an "exemplary resident." You've really got to admire just how tough our criminal justice system is on young offenders, even those who grow old in kiddie jails. "He was out bowling with her during some of their encounters. How he was out of a maximum security jail bowling is beyond me," the staffer said. Bowling excursions have now been cancelled and all we can do is wait for the libs to cry unfair, inhumane, cruel and unusual treatment.
We all owe a debt to Moonie Ali for bringing all this to light. Let's hope enough people make enough of a stink to get things changed. In a hurry.
Sources: Michele Mandel Easy Time At Sprucedale The Toronto Sun
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Good thing you don't write. You'd never make a dime at it because your ideas would be so easy to dispell.
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Thanks for the comment though.