IN RIGHT WING BID FOR ‘LAW AND ORDER’

Juveniles made sc

By FRED WILSON

A license for juveniles to ‘‘rape,
Steal, murder, plunder and burn?”
One would be led to believe that
Such is the case if the past week’s
activities of the- Vancouver Sun
were taken seriously.

However, when the largest
newspaper in the province runs a
Series of three feature articles
followed up by an editorial sen-
Sationalizing the so-called
“Juvenile delinquency problem,” it

1S a serious matter.

It is serious not so much by the
mere content of the articles in the
Sun, but because, with these ar-
ticles, the Sun has added its’ in-
fluential voice to a growing right

wing campaign for “law and or-
der.”

With little facts to go by, a
number of municipal officials, not
the least of which is Vancouver
Mayor Art Phillips, have found a
Convenient scapegoat in juveniles
to support their demand for larger
Police forces. Mayor Jack Camp-
bell in Port Coquitlam, the man
who made the comment about
youths who “‘rape, steal, murder’’

and so on is another outspoken
€xponent of law and order. He is
busily organizing a meeting of
Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley

Mayors to gain support for his
views,

Statements from the Vancouver
Police force, attacking human
resources minister Norm Levi
have added further weight to the
Campaign. All the parties involved
Come together in their criticism of
he provincial government.

The reasoning behind it all goes
Something like this:

The law toward juveniles is lax
and because of that, juvenile
delinquency has grown to enor-

’ mous proportions, making parks,
Community centres and city
Streets unsafe. The approach of the
Provincial government in closing
down Brannon and Willingdon
reform schools is blasted as
“farming out youngsters who need
firm control to hippie communes.”
The NDP government is equated
with the ‘permissive philosophy ;”’

stiffer laws, more police, ‘‘real
deterrents” are called for.

These contentions, though, are
really assumptions and are not
only unproven, they turn out false
when compared to facts.

Certainly there has been an
increase in the rate of juvenile
crime. In Vancouver about 3,800

“cases came before the juvenile

court last year. That compares
with about 2,000 cases 10 years ago.

The Tribune contacted Jack
Gillis, the regional director of the
juvenile court, to secure these
facts. He told us that even with the
increase the juvenile court has not
had to expand very much because
40% of the cases are handled by
probation officers and never come
to court. ““The number of cases in
the last year has remained about
consistent with the past year,”
Gillis said, ‘‘the figures over the
past 10 years reflects the general
increase in crime.”

A more accurate measurement
of the problem is obtainable from
the people at the supposed trouble
spots — the community centres in
Vancouver’s east end.

The current ‘‘hot spot’’ in
Vancouver is said to be the
Killarney community centre.
Relative to other youth centres it
might be hot, but is the problem

worse than a few years ago? Kevin .

Pike, the manager of the Killarney
recreational complex stated, ‘I’m
not convinced of that fact.’’ Pike
said there is a core of about 30
juveniles who create some
problems, but for the most part
troublemakers are excluded from
centre programs.

The situation at Killarney is
tempered further by the reports
from other east end community
centres who also bear reputations
of having a juvenile delinquent
problem. While the Hastings East
community centre, as well as the
Hastings East resource board
report ‘‘no complaints’’ about
juveniles, the Grandview com-
munity centre said, “In our case
there is far less of a problem than
in years past.”’ The director of the
Grandview centre, Mrs. Roberts;
attributed their success in solving

“OK, so you want to end the war, end racism, end poverty, and end
_, Pollution. But what about something POSITIVE?

\—Las*Vegas Free Press/LNS

the youth problem to ‘‘good
programs, a stable staff and a lack
of publicity.” She guessed that
press publicity had tripled the
scope of the-problem at Killarney
over what it need be.

The reasonable conclusion to
reach is that. juvenile crime has
increased as has all crime. Crime
itself is a much larger question tied
to social ills in a sick society. But
where responsible people have
applied themselves in good
‘programs, the ‘‘juvenile problem”’
has waned. No basis in fact ‘can be
found for a hysteria campaign
aimed at more severe penalties for
young people.

What about the law? Even
though a juvenile is spared from
such agonies as police lineups,
fingerprinting and mug shots, the
old axiom that ‘‘the law is the law”
applies equally to juveniles. As
Jack Gillis pointed out, ‘‘a juvenile
faces the same charges as an
adult, plus some additional
charges such as incorrigibility. It’s
not lenient actually, and the judge
may dispose of the case in the way
that he sees fit, andin a number of
ways not applied to adults.”

The Sun reported another
juvenile court official as saying
that there are 60 to 70 juveniles in
Vancouver who repeatedly commit
offences. And that is about the size
of it. It is cause for question as to
who is the greater social menace:
the youth, the judges who apply, or
the “lock them up,” law and order
advocates who would crack down
on all youth for the purposes of
incarcerating 70 problem kids.

The same question should be
applied to the six ‘problem
parents” at Slocan Park in Van-
couver whom the Sun dubbed as a
“vigilante group” in reaction to,
juvenile delinquency. Their an-

swer to some rowdyism in the area -

was to acquire firearms. Not a
word of criticism from the Sun
about this.

Vancouver mayor Art Phillips
would nearly double the size of the
police force as his answer to the
youth problem. No doubt the extra

men in blue would be largely held ~

in reserve for much more im-
portant political uses, but even

- given that some would be assigned

to youth work, little could be ex-
pected in terms ‘of solving social
problems. ‘

apego

ats

. . . the answer to juvenile delinquency?

Mrs. Roberts at the Grandview
centre was quick to say that; ‘‘our
big problem is lack of funds. We
can not. afford good quality in-
structors for our programs. Nor do
we have the money to advertise
and get our programs into the
community.”’ She went on to say
that training facilities for youth
workers simply do not exist. ‘““You
just work by your heart,”’ she said,
“by guess or golly.’ :

Ken Walker is a man who ex-
periences similar frustrations
from a slightly different angle. As
the executive director of the B.C.
Sports Federation he is concerned
with the kind of recreational
facilities that are available to
young people. ‘Facilities are
generally poor in east Vancouver,”
he said, ‘‘at the municipal level
money is hard to find.” Walker
said that in his opinion people
involved in amateur. sports

disagree with the punitive ap-
proach to youth problems, ‘‘our
approach is more opportunities,”’
he said, “‘so that young people will
see their responsibility to society
by having society show its
responsibility to them.”’

That approach is shared by most
people. Children’s jails never have
and never will prevent juvenile
crime. The amount of money
required for enlarging police
forces will go ‘a long way in
providing the kind of social ser-
vices and would be far better
spent.

The B.C. Sports Federation has
been after city council to provide
recreational facilities in the 70
acres of land on Champlain
Heights — near Killarney in
Vancouver. The question should be
asked of Mayor Phillips: Why not
start there?

Hate group reappears
at Vancouver meeting

Bearing witness to the upsurge of
right wing politics in this province,
150 people gathered in Howe
Street’s plush Holiday Inn last
week for a meeting of the notorious
hate group, the Canadian League
of Rights and to hear, among
others, professional anti-
Communist Pat Walsh.

Now second in command to the
fascist demagogue, Ron Gostick, of
the Canadian Intelligencer Ser-
vice, Walsh gained a measure of
infamy during the 1950’s when he
claimed to be an undercover
member of the RCMP’s red squad
and later when he appeared as a
friendly witness before the U.S.
House Un-American Activities
Committee. :

He was the featured speaker for
Monday’s meeting and though
some of his pronouncements —
including the assertion that
Kissinger is a Soviet spy — could
only be put aside as preposterous
— some portions of his speech were
far more sinister.

Foremost among the C.L.R.’s
campaigns is one aimed at
pressuring the federal government
to reinstitute the death penalty.
Alone, their campaign may not

amount to much but elsewhere
similar demands have been raised.

At least one police report has
advocated the death penalty and a
newly-formed organization,
Committee for Law Enforcement
Action Now (CLEAN), which
boasts over a hundred members in
the Lower Mainland, along with
Conservative MP John Reynolds
has joined the clamor. :

The C.L.R., however, was ap-
parently not satisfied with
Reynold’s petition and will be
rewording it to make it even
tougher before it is released for
circulation.

Walsh also unleashed a lengthy
invective on racism in adding his
voice to an increasingly popular
demand for curbs on immigration.
Aiming his attacks particularly
against Chinese and East Indian
immigrants, and implicating them
in an elaborate Communist con-
spiracy, he called for a ban on their
entry into this country.

Walsh was also the guest of radio
hot line programs and
significantly, while hysteric fervor
has been whipped up for law and
order, he was able to carry on his’
hate campaign without so much as
one official voice raised in protest.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 1975—Page 3 —