NAN Legal Services and OPP sign youth diversion protocol

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Aboriginal youth that commit minor crimes in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation Treaty area now have a better option than facing criminal charges and jail.

On Nov. 16 a youth pre-charge diversion protocol was signed between the Nishnawbe Aski Legal Services Corporation (NALSC) and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).

The purpose of the protocol is to better facilitate getting young offenders into the restorative justice program offered through NALSC, a stand-alone corporation that provides legal services such as legal aid, alternative justice and paralegal aid to members of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN).

Both the Crown and NALSC believed there was a need for a protocol and that it ought to be very broad and consist of guidelines that give Crown attorneys enough direction to begin making referrals to the restorative justice program.

What the protocol does is set out the conditions and procedures by which NALSC and the OPP can share information when NALSC is dealing with Aboriginal youth that are eligible to take part in the extrajudicial measures referral program (EMRP) that makes up part of the restorative justice program. By going through the EMRP, youth that get in trouble with the law can avoid entering into the youth criminal justice system. No charges are laid, and no court appearances are required.

To be eligible for the EMRP option, the crime committed by the young person must be non-violent and they cannot have been found guilty of a previous offense.

The EMRP typically uses diversion or healing circle where a youth must face members of the community and take responsibility for their actions against any possible victim of the crime. The circles also provide collective support for the victim.

"We organize a circle where the offender, the victim if any, and their supporters and community members who are involved in this sort of work would come together in a circle and the youth has to take responsibility for his or her actions and the youth has to agree to take the consequences that the circle participants mete out to him," said Evelyn Baxter, executive director of NALSC.

"It could be anything from apologizing to the victim, to fixing damages, working off the cost of what he or she has done or community service work. You name it," said Evelyn Baxter.

"The communities are generally pretty imaginative when they come up with how these young people should take responsibility for what they have done."

Baxter said that in this way youth offenders learn their actions have consequences and that their behavior, if it is unacceptable, affects the community as a whole.

"In our experience we are finding that it (EMRP) is a very effective way to deal with both youth and adults in a traditional or culturally appropriate manner."

One of the problems with the Canadian system, Baxter explained, is that court only sits once every three months in many NAN communities and by the time any sentence is handed out so much time has passed that the link between action and consequence has lost it's relevance.

"The Euro-Canadian system doesn't really have a lot of meaning for the NAN community," she said.

For more information about the Nishnawbe Aski Legal Services Corporation and the services it provides, visit the organization's Web site at www.nanlegal.on.ca.