Youth given definite term a first - Criminal Defence Lawyer Ottawa for Youth Offender

Date: 15 Dec 1983
By Stephen Bindman
Citizen staff writer

In a rare move, an Ottawa judge has sentenced a youthful offender to a definite term in training school. Saying the usual practice of indefinite committals is inappropriate, family court Judge P. D. Hamlyn recently sentenced a 15-ycar-old youth to a maximum of four months in a training school. The provincial attorney general's ministry is seeking leave to appeal the Nov. 22 decision to the Supreme Court of Ontario. Juvenile offenders are usually sentenced to indefinite periods in training school, and it is up to the individual school superintendent to decide when to release the youth, based on his progress. In this case, the youth was convicted of several theft charges and is to serve his sentence in an Uxbridge training school. "I have never quite understood, totally, the concept of an indefinite term," Hamlyn said. "I know what the objective is, but the results haven't always borne out the objectives." Although young offenders are sentenced to "industrial school" under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, a federal Jaw, the actual functioning of the training schools is set out in a provincial statute, the Training School Act. "To our knowledge, it's the first time it's been done in Ontario," said Brendan Evans, a Crown law officer with the attorney general's ministry. Although most youngsters . , stay in training school for an average of five months, they can be made wards of the Crown until their 18th birthday. The youth's lawyer, Gary Chayko, argued an indefinite committal "could have the undesirable effect of creating a new set of possibly more undesirable peers." HamJyn said the youth's offence is not serious enough to warrant a sentence that could keep him in a training school until he is I 8. Judges have made recommendations on the length of term in the past, but they are not binding on the training school. lf it's given permission to appeal, the Crown plans to argue Hamlyn erred in "purporting to exercise a discretion which he did opt have."