When Restorative Justice is not Restorative or Justice: Legal System and Youth Offenders

Can we talk about youth offenders for a minute? Things have certainly changed since I was a teenager. If you got in trouble with the law when I was a kid, there could be pretty severe consequences. I knew way too many kids that went to juvie or wilderness camp because they had broken the law. Today, its all about rehabilitation and restorative justice. In some cases, I think this is great. In others I am left thinking “What the actual fuck?”

                 I want to preface this by saying I have not conducted any studies, and I have not read the research behind why the system is the way it is now. I am basing this on my own experience as a former youth, what I witnessed growing up and as a mother of children that have been a part of the system and been victims. If you make it to the end of my rant, I have posted Sarah’s and my victim impact statements that were read in court on Wednesday.

                 Anyone that’s been keeping up with me is aware of Sarah’s accident and the after math that ensued. That is ultimately what has led me here today. I am going to get there but I’m going to go further back to start. Why back in the dark ages, or the late 80’s and 90’s when I was a teenager, if you did something illegal and got caught there was a chance you would land yourself in a juvenile detention center. It is my understanding that this still exists, but it is used as a last resort when repeatedly trying everything else has failed.  I don’t remember any of my female friends ever landing there but I do remember many of my male friend going to juvie. Some repeatedly, and some were scared straight after being there once. The other option I remember was wilderness camp. For some this was a 24/7 military style boot camp that ran year round. For others it was a weekend punishment. The boys were able to attend school during the week and were shipped off for 3 months of weekends.

                 I found back then that the consequence did not always fit the crime. Maybe it was a heavy handed judge that was making an example or maybe he had just had a bad day and was tired of all of the delinquents. Don’t get me wrong, some of those kids did deserve to be there and I am fairly certain that they would tell you now that they never wanted to return. Which is what kept them on the straight and narrow afterward.

                 In contrast, today there seems to be a lack of severe consequences. The main focus is on restoring justice and rehabilitation. For some offences I love this idea. If a youth shoplifts or vandalizes, I think this restorative justice is a great option. Make the child accountable to the store they stole from. They have to do a course and theft and write a letter to the store. For vandalism there could be a monetary fee to repair the damage that they have done. I think the punishment fits the crime. There are still crimes that this does not work!

                 I’ll give you a for instance. One of my children was assaulted in grade 8. In this wonderful world where everyone records and no one helps; there was amble video evidence of this. I called the police against the will of my child. Because I called the police my kiddo was jumped on the way home a few days later in retaliation. The party that assaulted my child was sent to restorative justice and not charged. They were supposed to have no contact with my child, except at the restorative justice office where an apology was to take place. They little shit did not stop threatening my kid, throughout the entire process. This person has continued to behave in much the same way as they did years ago because not only did the justice system fail my child but also them. I think if there had been a consequence that fit the crime the perpetrator would have been less likely to reoffend in fear of being punished again. As it stood there was less than a slap on the wrist.

                 Now I will talk about the court this week. There were two charges. One was for dangerous driving, and the other was dangerous driving causing bodily harm. The frustrating thing to start with was the first was also an accident causing bodily harm. Anyone that remembers on my Facebook in the summer of 2023 Sarah was in a motorcycle accident that I said she was ok, but I had to take her to the hospital with road rash and a concussion. None of that was mentioned. I was not even aware that that accident was a part of the case. The accident on Sept 8, 2023, was investigated for almost a year. The police received video footage and several eyewitness accounts as well as their forensic evidence. Let me lay the scene. Sept 8, 2023, was a dry warm sunny day. Shortly after 1 pm traffic on 240^th street in Maple Ridge was low to moderate (according to the police report). Heading north on 240 a driver of an SUV turned on his turn signal to turn left on Kanaka Creek Road. There was a car behind him that slowed down and behind her was a black motorcycle traveling at approximately 140 km/hr. The motorcycle crossed the solid yellow line, into oncoming traffic to pass the car that was slowing down. It was then that the SUV turned left. The motorcycle and its 2 riders were launched into the corn field and ditch. The driver was 17 at the time of the accident. He was 4 months away from being 18 and an adult in the eyes of the law. My daughter, the passenger, was 18 at the time of the accident, and she miraculously survived.

                 The doctors and surgeons have said on several occasions that her recovery was miraculous because she was not expected to survive the first night. Anyone that wants to know the about her stay in the hospital, from my perspective, and all the injuries she endured go back and read https://www.goodbadcrazy.ca/post/groundhog-day-life-of-a-parent-with-a-kid-in-the-hospital. Over 2 years later Sarah still struggles with memory, pain in her shoulder and neck, and her right arm is still partially paralyzed. I think at this point the physical effects are just a part of her life. She has learned how to work around her limitations. She is still in weekly appointments, and at the end of this month will be her one year check after her nerve transplant in her arm that gave her some mobility. I think the emotional toll and isolation is far harder on her than the physical. She is a real tough cookie, and I think she is just tired. She wants the life that she used to have and none of this has been fair.

                 Crown counsel spent a great deal of time running through the evidence on Wednesday. She talked about all the witness statements. She talked about how the driver had recently begun counselling (two weeks ago), and how it was convenient that he started before sentencing but only just. She talked about the forensic psych evaluation that he had, and how he showed little remorse for his action and instead victim blamed. Mostly she talked about his disregard for the conditions that had been placed on him concerning driving. The driver has several more charges for driving and accidents. I do know he wrote off a car before the end of that year. I have seen videos of him riding a motorcycle at speeds near 300km/hr, and as recently as July he was in an accident and had tickets for leaving the scene of an accident, driving without insurance and driving without a license and while prohibited.

                 Given all the information what do you think the consequences should be for the charges? I think they should be severe. They should be one step down from if she had died. For the first charge from July 7 2023 he was given 6 months’ probation, he is not allowed to be in the driver seat of any vehicle, he is not allowed to be on the driver seat or passenger seat of a motorcycle, and he has to check in with a youth officer. For the accident on September 8, 2023, the sentence was the same except for two years and a few things added. He is ordered to do forensic therapy, regular therapy, he has a 10 pm curfew for 6 months and 20 hours of community service. The sentences are to run concurrently, which to me is bullshit. I think at the very least they should have been consecutive. Sarah and I do not feel satisfied with this outcome. Does anyone think that the punishment fits the crime?

                 When the judge gave his reasons, he did so by first cutting the defense off. He knew he’d be hearing all the same information during the adult trial, and the fact was he felt like his hands were tied in this one. He wanted to get it done so that if Sarah and I didn’t want to come back we didn’t have to. He said that as a father and a motorcycle driver he was disturbed by the driver’s actions. As a father he was moved by the victim impact statements and would like to put the driver in jail for an extended period of time. He is of course a judge though and he had to follow the law and in youth offenses that is about rehabilitation. He said that he thought sending him to jail would not fix the situation but could perhaps make it worse by allowing negative connections to form. I don’t think he was talking into account that the driver will be going to jail for the adult charges. There is a minimum jail sentence so he will still have the opportunity to make those negative connections, and he got a slap on the wrist for almost killing someone.

                 Like everything else I write about, I don’t have any answers. I just want to make people aware of the problem. There has to be something in the middle. Kids are not afraid to be little shits anymore because no one will do anything about it. I think this is also a disservice to them because what a culture shock to go from months away from 18 almost killing someone and the punishment is you aren’t allowed to drive to going to jail because of being over 18 and driving when you’re not allowed. Where are those wilderness camps now? I think they need to come back. I know I would have felt a lot better knowing that kid was waking up at 6am to stand in ice cold water, running miles on end and being treated like the criminal he is.

Sarah’s Victim Impact Statement:

The physical and emotional pain I’ve endured has been overwhelming. Every day feels like a challenge as I try to cope with what this has left me with.

The trauma has left me with PTSD and simply worsened my anxiety, and depression, and it’s made my borderline personality disorder worse. I struggle to find joy in the things I used to love, and simple tasks now feel exhausting. I often feel trapped in my own mind — scared, anxious, and struggling to feel like myself again.

The pain in my body is constant. My right shoulder and neck hurt every day, and my arm goes numb or feels like it’s being stabbed. Even gentle touch can be painful, which makes me feel isolated

Because of my brain injury, I suffer from severe memory loss. I forget appointments, conversations, and even daily tasks. I’ve already had four surgeries, with a possible fifth ahead, and each one is a painful reminder of how much my body has changed.

My injuries delayed my graduation and made learning difficult. My dream of becoming a youth counsellor now feels so far away, and with multiple medical appointments each week, I can’t hold a job.

I’ve lost friends who didn’t understand the changes in me, and I grieve the memories I can’t remember. I feel like a different person, one I’m still trying to get to know. The isolation, the pain, and the uncertainty have changed how I see myself and my future.

I miss who I was before. I miss me.

To the Court directly: What hurts the most is knowing that all of this could have been avoided and that he shows no remorse. I live every single day with the consequences of his choices, while he moves on with his life. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’ve gone through. I just hope the court understands how much this has affected me and holds him accountable, so that no one else has to get hurt the way I did.

My Victim Impact Statement:

On September 8, 2023, around 4pm I received a phone call from Fraser Health that was something that no parent should ever have to hear. My daughter had been in a motorcycle accident. She was airlifted to Royal Columbian. I knew intuitively the accident was the one that I had seen on 240^th in Maple Ridge only a few hours before. At approximately 2pm I had turned south on the 240 and had seen a large emergency vehicle presence at the bottom of the hill. I went onto Facebook and to the group Albion neighbors to see if anyone knew what was going on. There was a post about a really bad motorcycle accident that was closing the street. My daughter had recently moved to that area so when the social worker told me that Sarah had been in an accident I knew right away the one that I saw was her. The social worker told me that I needed to get there as soon as I could and that I should not drive myself. This, to me, could only mean that she was in such bad shape that once I saw her, I would not be stable enough to drive myself home.

Once I was at the hospital there were a few other moments that stick out in my head that indicated how terrible things were, but none more than when the social worker asked me in the waiting room of the ICU if Sarah had any siblings. I told her that Sarah had a lot of siblings. She told me that they all needed to get to the hospital right away. She was telling me that if they wanted to say goodbye they should come to the hospital tonight. My eldest son flew in from the Okanagan that night, followed by the other 5 brothers and 2 sisters that all arrived from all over Greater Vancouver. Doctors did not expect Sarah to survive the night. The meeting that I had with the medical team informed me that if Sarah woke up from her coma that they did not know the extent of the damage because she was bleeding in areas of her brain that controlled swallowing, talking, walking, emotional regulation and impulse control, and there was nothing they could do but sit and wait because her brain was inoperable.

After that I spent every day for almost 2 months in the hospital with my daughter. Along the way there were so many other injuries and complications. Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken scapula, 3 broken bones in her left hand, a collapsed lung, a substantial portion of her right bicep was removed, she had extensive nerve damage in her right arm leaving it paralyzed. She was also cycling through something called thyroid storming. I would sit and watch her heart rate and blood pressure climb to the point of heart attack, while wiping the sweat pouring off her unconscious face. I would beg the staff to give her something to help her. They would give her medication to bring her heart rate down only to have her heart rate drop so low she was at risk of her heart stopping. While she was in the hospital and later Queens Park Rehabilitation Centre Sarah required full care. To start she could not walk, or shower, she could barely hold a cup or feed herself. When Sarah got out of the hospital, she required full-time care and someone to take her to all her appointments. For the first year after the accident, I drove Sarah to all her appointments. Most weeks there were 5 appointments a week, but sometimes there were more. I am a single mom and at the time of the accident I had 4 different jobs that I had to leave indefinitely. I was only able to return to one of my jobs that I have shifts on the weekends because all Sarah’s appointments were during the week. I was lucky enough to collect EI until July 2024. As we approached the one-year anniversary of the accident I could not return to the same work schedules that I had before in case Sarah needed me to get her to an appointment or to another surgery. A year ago, Sarah still had many appointments and still was in need of my help to get to them. I decided to go back to school remotely so that I was available for Sarah if she ever needed me, but this created an incredible financial strain on me. Now it is 2 years since the accident, and I have still not returned to full time work. This has greatly affected my ability to care for my children who are still minors. Sarah has slowly become more independent; she still relies on me because she struggles with short-term memory loss. We can make a plan for an appointment before she goes to bed and by the next morning, she has no memory of what the plan was. It breaks my heart to have to answer the same question several times because she doesn’t remember the answer that I gave her the day before.

There is nothing quite like thinking that you are about to lose a child. I did my best to be strong and keep things together for my kids. I was spending all day in the hospital or driving back and forth to pick kids up from school, making them dinner and heading back to the hospital. I have been overwhelmed and burnt out since the day it happened. There have been nights, even now, when the weight of everything that’s happened hits me and it’s still too much to bear. I cry quietly, but uncontrollably until there are no more tears and I have a raging headache. I also experience CPTSD symptoms when I have had to go to hospital, when I drive past accidents and I have a constant fear that I am going to lose Sarah or one of my other children. I have tried to work through all of this in therapy but because there are still so many aftereffects that affect my daily life it was too big to manage. There have been negative physical effects for me due to stress because of the accident and its aftermath. I often have anxiety attacks that cause me to have vertigo and heart palpitations. I have chronic pain in my neck and shoulders from the stress, and I have had significant weight gain, that my doctor believes is stress related, that is causing me a myriad of other health issues.

Two years later, the hardest part of all of this as a mom is watching what it has done to my children. Sarah was 18 at the time of the accident and I was happy to see that she was making strides into adulthood by moving out and looking for full-time employment. She was a beautiful shining light. Since the accident, I have had to help her navigate getting on disability, moving back home and the depression she faces because so many friends, opportunities, and the life she wanted were taken from her. Sarah’s emotions are not under her control, and they affect the entire house. Sarah’s cognitive functioning is not where it was before. She gets angry and frustrated, or she does not understand why people are frustrated with her. It’s hard to be with her while she is trying to communicate her needs to someone and not be able to form the sentences and get the words out. All this weighs on me heavily as her mother. Sarah tells me often she feels alone and like she has no one to help her. She cannot comprehend all the things that I do or how many people she has there to support her. I worry constantly about her safety and mental health. It is like a punch in the chest when she says she wished she had died in the accident. Since September 8, 2023, my relationship with my daughter has changed profoundly. We were becoming friends. I mourn the loss of what was and what was going to be, and I have had to learn to live with what is and how to be thankful for what I have with her even if it is a fraction of what it should be.