Youth Custody Measures Adjusted
Saturday, March 31, 2012 @ 8:41 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Ministry of Children and Family Development has adjusted plans to centralize female youth in custody in Burnaby and reduced the use of police cells for temporary placement of girls in custody.
Changes include:
· Girls in Prince George and Victoria, who are remanded or sentenced to custody and who are to be placed in Burnaby, will be directly transported to Burnaby on the same day of the court appearance. If same-day transportation is not possible, they will be placed overnight at the local youth custody centre and transported to Burnaby the next day. This will avoid the overnight use of local police cells.
· Prince George girls who are remanded to custody for a week or less will be placed at the Prince George custody centre instead of being sent to Burnaby. However, if a girl is alone in a unit, she will be given the choice to move to Burnaby to reduce feelings of isolation.
These changes strengthen the transportation plan the ministry already had in place, including flying girls in custody from outside of the Lower Mainland directly to Burnaby from the nearest airport instead of from regional hubs. If an overnight stay in Prince George or Victoria is necessary, they will be placed in the local youth custody centre until they are escorted to Burnaby.
The centralization of girls’ services in Burnaby will enable improvements to youth justice services, such as enhanced rehabilitative programs, expedited escort of girls to Burnaby, improved support for family visiting and enhanced community-based alternatives to custody for girls in Prince George.
The specific nature of the new services in Prince George will be determined after consultation with community partners and stakeholders.
Comments
That’s an improvement.
“improved support for family visiting”
It will be interesting to hear how they plan to pull that off…..send a girl from Prince George to Burnaby for her lockup, and what? You give the family that wants to visit plane tickets to Burnaby? Hmmmmm
Hoo boy, now they’re gonna “fly” them all down south. So, all these northern towns are gonna have their sheriffs escorting these young kids to Vancouver. Think the cost of staffing our local centre will now be cheaper than “flying” these kids back and forth. Would love to see the budget at year end for that vs staffing locally. I realize the news release says PG and Vic., but, there’s a lot of towns in the north and northwest that moved their kids here on remand.
Comments for this article are closed.