What a shame that these kids are being taught by their parents to be druggies, dealers and God knows what else. They don't stand a chance growing up with these low lifes..Most people want the best for their kids and would die for them...not set them up to die. Why do people like this even have children? How sad.

Agree with you on that.

Gotta be self esteem...their is a life out there. I guess some of these people just give up on life and decide to latch onto someone elses misery to make them feel better.

Why do we allow our courts to be bogged down with repeat offenders?

What do they mean, "the 18 year old will return to court to see if the original sentence should be completed behind bars"? What kind of a question is that?

If our judges and our courts cannot be more effective in carrying out justice, we have more urgent problems to deal with than a few people involved in the drug trade. Why do we bother to arrest them in the first place? Chester

Well, it'll soon be OK, because PG now has a nice truck for night-time needle exchange. Fully staffed with a nurse and a couple of other folks. If you're legalising the use of drugs, quit complaining about some entrepeneur trying to make a quick buck by selling them. He or she know it's pretty safe since they get chucked out of jail real fast time and time again!

I remember an old boss of mine saying that somethings can be solved with a single bullet. He was referring to some of the Eastern politicians that initiated the National Energy Plan in 1980.

Although the kid's dad is most likely a Piece of s**t, the crew are into recruiting youth for their drug enterprizes.....the dad most likely got involved after the son did. The promise of money, drugs, and young women with more looks than brains who are always latching onto the dudes with the bucks and flashy cars (drug subculture) Wastes of skin, all of them.

The single bullet or lead pill theory may be the answer. If all these bottom feeders stay on task and get greedy like they do, this theory may come to life...like they say..good things come to those who wait. Unfortunately how many lives are to be affected before this happens.

I think the problem is compounded everytime our courts and judges let these people off with a slap on the wrist.The contempt these people show for our laws and other people is astounding!What our courts and judges are doing is inexcusable.
Conditional sentences my ass!
It seems to be getting worse inspite of what we hear about judicial reform from our politicians.The question is,how do we stop this kind of crap?I can imagine the frustration the cops feel as well.
These people are parasites and nothing more.And the fact that some of them are young is no excuse.They all know right from wrong.
Hit 'em and hit 'em hard!!Lock them up and keep them there til they holler uncle!

I was just in PG facilitating at CSCFS youth conference and spoke about the crew and how they are recruiting youth to do their dirty work. PG RCMP need to get off their asses and launch an all out assault on the crew just like the Toronto police are launching an all out assault on the hells angels. Hit them where it hurts, take their proceeds of crime benefits and then run their sorry asses out of town. They're not something our youth should aspire to become, they are low life bottom feeding scumbags.

I would have to say the biggest cause of the failure of our legal system is our elected politicians are choosing not to build more prisons. All of our present prisons are full. Without more prison space our judges are not able to increase sentences.

The last figure I heard is it costs about 75K a year to keep people in jail. Maybe we should privatize our prison system. I am sure the private sector could run prisons far cheaper than our public sector can.

I feel sorry for drug users. Crystal meth and crack are mind altering drugs. Look at how difficult it is for smokers to quit, most of which are intelligent people who understand the health risks and costs. I know smart, motivated women who smoke during pregnancy, despite the likely long term effects to the unborn child.
I think addictions is a deep seeded issue. I think it starts with aloof neglectful parenting and a lack of education. Why do schools spend so little time teaching the nuances of life skills like child development, budgetting, relationship maintenence, and other critical life skills. What's it called in High School....home economics? I remember that class being the stupidest waste of time. There's got to be a way to make it real. Youth present parents with some pretty intense challenges. I think that parents slip into the trap of being their kid's friend rather than their parent. Routine, clear expectations, task orientation, and family time is critical. So many parents are aloof and disinterested and the balance between work and family is rarely managed appropriately.
The gov't money that's spent on the curative model is astronomical. Early intervention and front end spending needs to be implemented to a far greater extent. The first 5 years of any child's development shapes them for the rest of their lives.
There will always be community challenges like crime and addictions but being smart and developing systems for effective prevention is really worth a shot. Specially when we're spending 75K a year to house those that commit crimes. That's $1,000,000 for every 13.3 people in jail.
The other side of the coin is reintegration for criminals into the community and the work force. They're all set up for failure because employers don't want convicts for anything that requires a level of trust so ex-con's are stuck with minimal paying jobs or income assistence. These factors make the lure of fast money and crime much more significant which increases recidivism. If you look at the population of youth and young adults who steal cars for a living, you'd find a group of offenders who stuggled through school because of lousy parents, learning disabilities and other disorders. So, identifying these people in their latency years and identifying the issues that contribute to learning and social problems could be a way to prevent them from slipping through the cracks of the school system. I'd suspect that the spending in this area is significantly less than it should be. Why not start teaching trades and other fall back skills much earlier?
I could go on and on with this but I think I've made my point. Early intervention and new thinking for educational programs is key in my mind. It'll inevitably create a platform for kids who would otherwise be hitting the streets of drugs and crime.

"They're all set up for failure because employers don't want convicts for anything that requires a level of trust so ex-con's are stuck with minimal paying jobs or income assistence. These factors make the lure of fast money and crime much more significant which increases recidivism. "

Your arguments are logical. However, why should it necessarily follow that a person who earns a meager income would be lured more significantly into a life of crime? Isn't doing wrong or right a choice? I know both poor and not so poor people who went into prostitution or drug dealing because making money that way was easier. But, I also know many people who are rat poor and yet managed to keep their integrity intact. They had to opportunity to become prostitutes and drug dealers but they chose not to because they considered those actions wrong.

I do not consider being poor and deprived a justification for doing wrong. Introducing trades courses/other fall back skills will answer only the need to make money. I agree that we should have these. However, I also think that it's equally, or even more, important that the school system and the community be modified so that we inculcate values in people. In some cases, what's wrong and right are very grey areas. However, I believe that, in most cases, what are wrong and right are black and white issues. People just choose to do the wrong thing because there's a greater material reward in doing wrong.

What would it take to rehabilitate criminals and offenders into humans who think “I am doing this because it is the right to do, even if there is no material gain for me.” What would it take for all of us to think the same way?

Am I a super righteous middle income PG resident? No, I am a “living-below-the-poverty-line-but-not-on-income-assistance PG resident.” I live on less than $9,000 annual income and yet I do not go around stealing people’s cars and properties and selling drugs. I grew up believing that, as a member of a community, I have a responsibility to be a “good” citizen and contribute to the community. If I am unable to contribute to the community, then the least I can do is “do no harm.” And, no, my parents were not the exemplary type of parents who were perfect role models for their children. As a kid grows up, you just have to learn to separate the good from the bad. That’s why you always have a dichotomy among adults coming from dysfunctional families --- On one end, you have children of abusive parents turning into abusive parents themselves. On the other, you have children of abusive parents turning into very responsible parents/adults. The second group are children who were able to rise above everything, distinguish right from wrong and decided to not follow their parents’ path. Not all of the children from this second group benefited from community or family intervention and yet they were able to carve their own path.

Does being born into a dysfunctional family absolve an individual of his responsibility to think for himself and distinguish right from wrong? I can well understand that if that person and his family lived in isolation. However, since most of us live in contact with other people and exposed to ideas from here and beyond this country, there should be a point in a kid-from-a-dysfunctional family’s life when he should be able to define what’s wrong with his family and make decisions for himself. How long can one individual go on deliberately obtusely blaming his miserable life on his parents and how deprived he was?

blah, blah, blah,blah....crack,coke,meth, etc all the users come from all stratas of society. They do it because they wanted to. Now theyre hooked and theyre useless and must predatorize on all of us to keep on getting their fixes. To quote a line from some movie or book: "F**k em, let them die - god will sort them out."

Try as I might,I can't feel sorry for the users.And you can't go through you life blaming your childhood for every bad thing that ever happened to you.
Been there,done that.Bad idea.
These users/addicts still know right from wrong.There is help if they want it, but it seems like most of them don't.
I don't like the success rates in these recovery programs either.
Our courts treat these winners like what they were doing was a minor offence.Using this crap is one thing, and it's bad enough,but dealing it and manufacturing it is another.
Dealers are no better than murderers and should be treated that way.And it's the dealer we need to whack.
Sorry, but I think we need to hit them much harder in the courts.Go for automatic jail time and if there is no room in the jails,build more!And I don't give a damn what it costs!