His office is simple, non-threatening. There is a large desk he could sit behind, but more inviting are the two, low chairs separated by a small table covered with information brochures. There is the feeling that many people, from all lifestyles, have sat in those chairs.

The office belongs to Harvey Lomax, the Justice Program Co-ordinator at The Salvation Army. He is a retired police officer who has been in the community since 1994.

“When I was with the RCMP, I thought I had a pretty good idea what was going on,” he said. After he retired in 1999 and took on the role with the alternative measures adult program before taking over the youth case load, he began to connect with people on a less threatening level.

The alternative measures program, now called youth extrajudicial sanctions, is a voluntary option to going through the court system, especially for young offenders without a criminal record.

The reality is drug and alcohol use often go hand in hand with criminal behaviour. “Our directions are to the police, that on every file with a young offender we should look at alternative measures,” said Crown Prosecutor, Steve Kritzer.

Lomax does not see a youth file until the prosecution has approved it. The prosecutors also need to consider whether or not there is some specific problem that is causing criminal activity and the people at alternative measures are tremendous at using their resources to keep people out of bad behaviours, he added.

As Lomax works through the intake questionnaires he indicated he is surprised if they say they don’t use drugs or alcohol. “Usually if there is a criminal offence, there is a reason that it happened,” said Lomax. “If there is a reason, chances are there are underlying causes and I want to flush those out.” That way the bad behaviours can be adjusted.

Many of the questions asked by Lomax will focus on drug and alcohol use in youth. Through years of experience, he has learned to pick out “flags”. “Sometimes I will get on the report that so and so was drunk, so and so was high. Those are the easy ones because I know where to focus,” said Lomax.

He doesn’t have compiled stats, but Lomax estimated he recommends between 60 and 70 percent of the youth he sees to addiction services. “I wouldn’t send them if they weren’t using,” said Lomax. “The bottom line is a lot of the kids I see have issues.” He took the time to emphasize he is only seeing a small percentage of the youth in southwestern Saskatchewan.

To prevent getting a jaded view of all youth, he takes the time to volunteer with others who chose to live a healthy lifestyle.

While taking youth through the restorative justice program, he is aiming to give them positive life skills as well. “Generally-speaking I try to obtain information and education for the youth. I am not looking for an enforcement-style approach,” explained Lomax.

“Albeit, I do hold them accountable and if they don’t do what they say in the agreement they will do, they are going to go back and see Judge Matsalla.” He wants the youth to succeed at correcting their behaviours, but he will not enable them, he emphasized.

A key component of the alternative measures program is the mediation process, which ideally includes the victim, parents, support people such as youth workers or counsellors, and the police.

Some guidelines of determining if a young offender is an ideal candidate for the alternative measures program include, taking responsibility for the offence supported by evidence, no failed alternative measures attempts within the last six months and no more than two judicial sanctions within the last three years.

Alternative measures may not be the first attempts at correcting behaviour if the prosecutors feel the young offender needs monitoring within the community on a long-term basis, explained Kritzer.

Alternatively, if a young person needs long-term counselling, a court probation order may be used. There is no easy solution when addressing youth and substance use. Especially when the justice system only deals with a small percentage of the southwest’s youth and certainly not all the ones who choose to use drugs and alcohol.

Reprinted with permission by Prairie Post
By Elizabeth Huber