Advocates don’t want youth tried in new court
Report reveals police worried single courthouse could bring ‘violent criminals’ to one place
Advocates are reiterating their call that young people not be prosecuted in the new Toronto courthouse being built downtown, a day after a secret police report revealed security concerns regarding the new building.
As the Star reported Monday, a June 2017 document titled “A TPS perspective” said police are worried the courthouse, expected to be complete by 2022, will bring an “unprecedented number of violent criminals to a single location” and it will be “extremely difficult” to prevent gang-related violence in the vicinity of the new building.
Since it was made public, the report has been criticized as an attempt to get the government to provide additional resources to the force.
But those who work with children and youth caught up in the justice system say the concerns underscore the need to maintain a separate building for youth court. “To the extent that the concerns about serious violent and gang activities are true, exposing young people to that, especially young people who have already been charged with a criminal offence and in danger of stigmatization, is inappropriate,” said Mary Birdsell, executive director of Justice for Children and Youth, a legal clinic that has long been opposed to including the youth court in the new courthouse.
“The other piece of this is that they are vulnerable to getting lured in, to being taken advantage of, by more sophisticated adult people who have a criminal intent of one kind or another.” The new 17-storey, 63-courtroom courthouse will
amalgamate the adult and youth criminal operations of six Ontario Court of Justice locations currently scattered across the city. At present, only the courthouse at 311 Jarvis St. houses a youth criminal court without also accommodating an adult court.
Youth court is incorporated in courthouses that also prosecute adults in every other jurisdiction in Ontario. “The fact that they are combined in other parts of the city and other parts of Ontario doesn’t mean that that’s the right thing to do,” said lawyer Robin McKechney, a member of the board of directors of the Toronto Lawyers Association, also opposed to including youth court in the new Toronto courthouse.
“311 Jarvis, first of all, has the potential to accommodate the other youth satellite courts (in the city), and even if the decision was made not to combine the youth court in one spot, closing this facility, which is quite frankly known around the country and the continent for its programs, is short-sighted.”
The government has said 311 Jarvis will remain open post-2022 but for family court matters only. The new courthouse will include a dedicated area for specialized youth courts and support services and a separate holding area with direct access to youth courtrooms, Deputy Attorney General Paul Boniferro told the Star last week, which he said would exceed what is currently available to youth at the Etobicoke and Scarborough courthouses.
“Consultations were held with a wide range of justice participants, including judiciary, counsel, and community and social service organizations dedicated to supporting Toronto’s youth courts,” the statement says.
Birdsell said while discussions under the previous Liberal government were billed as consultations, “it was clear that the decision (to centralize the courts) and the process were already well down the road.”
“Nobody supports it as a good idea,” she said, “not the service providers, not the academics who know youth criminal justice, not the lawyers, not the program managers, not the judges.”
Lawyer Daniel Brown, a vicepresident with the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, described the concerns raised in the Toronto police report as “overblown.” He said there are too many inefficiencies with maintaining separate courthouses and that a new courthouse is desperately needed.
“The fact that they are combined in other parts of the city and other parts of Ontario doesn’t mean that that’s the right thing to do.” ROBIN MCKECHNEY LAWYER