Reformatories: throwing away the key on Canadian kids

Attention must be paid to what Willy Loman said about the asinine changes in the works for the Young Offenders Act.

Prosecutors will now have to justify why they are not trying a 14 year old as an adult in a serious offense, not the other way around.

Hell, that's nothing, just wait until Harper get his majority and they get that whole "presumed guilty until proven innocent" thing in place as an efficiency measure.

Logically locking up our youngest offenders instead of focussing on their rehabilitation, while there is still time and better chance for rehabilitation will more likely produce hardened young adults who will have better chance of becoming professional criminals as soon as they are back on the streets, than productive members of society. But that is just too logical.
Unfortunately facts and logic do not exist for the Harper reformatories or if realized, they are just ignored. The main purpose of these draconian changes to our societal laws is to satisfy a rabid narrow base of bible bangers, living in privileged, sheltered rural based cities

In the meantime, you might be interested in this old post of mine.  Plus ca change, eh?

Why cops don't belong in schools

My only question about this incident is why it took so long to happen.

Teens question authority. It is what they do, it is practically hardwired into the DNA. Putting an authority figure in their way for no good reason is just asking for trouble. If that authority figure is a coach or a teacher or a vice principal, even one with a chip on their shoulder, they are at least used to dealing with kids. A police officer may not be as experienced in dealing with kids. And one that decides to arrest a teenager for making "bacon" jokes or being a smart ass, is not someone who should be working in a school.

Who is the cop supposed to be protecting the students from? And who is protecting the students from the cops?

Bygones? I don't think so

Prosecuting people responsible for torture is not "controversial"  -- it is a legal international treaty obligation to the Geneva conventions for sake.
There have been dozens of torture deaths in U.S. custody ( more listed here) 

Waterboarding is unquestionably torture.
The Tokyo war crimes tribunal tried, convicted and sentenced a Japanese officer to 15 year hard labor for waterboarding GIs in World War II. 

Despite the best efforts of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales to try to weasel around it, waterboarding is torture. Failure to prosecute for torture is itself a war crime. Obama has no choice -- he must order the Justice Department to investigate and charge people where appropriate.

Standing up for Canada
Peter McKay is supposed to be hobnobbing with Condi Rice this weekend - do you think this family's case is likely to come up? Or will he be too busy trying to get to first base?

Canadian boy caught in Texas detention

Aircraft's chance landing in U.S. calamitous event for 9-year-old, his Iranian parents

Feb 16, 2007 04:30 AM

Michelle Shephard
Rick Westhead
Toronto Star Staff Reporters

A 9-year-old Canadian boy is in a Texas detention centre after his flight to Toronto made an unscheduled stop and U.S. officials detained his family.

Now the boy's Iranian parents are pleading with Canadian officials to help secure the family's release from the immigration holding facility, which has come under fire for allegedly detaining children in sub-standard conditions.

"All the time he is asking me, `Why am I wearing the uniform? Why I am here?'" the boy's mother said, as she sobbed during a telephone interview from the detention facility yesterday.

"We didn't do nothing. My child is innocent."

The parents, who have no status in Canada, asked that their names not be published out of fear of eventually being returned to Iran, where they say they were previously imprisoned and suffered physical and sexual abuse.