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."