By Mario deSantis, January 16, 2000

Last Thursday, January 13, Michigan judge Eugene Moore rejected to sentence 13 year old hNathienal Abraham as an adult and gave him the opportunity to rehabilitate himself through the juvenile justice system(1). . Abraham was convicted earlier of second degree murder in the 1997 shooting death of 18 year old Ronnie Lee Greene. Judge Moore's sentencing of Abraham takes a different course from the getting tough approach against juvenile offenders, in fact judge Moore recognized that young offenders must be given the chance of rehabilitation rather than being punished through a failed adult prison system. What was more important is that Judge Moore confirmed that the shooting death of Ronnie Lee Greene was not a criminal act of the then eleven year old Abraham, but the result of growing up in an environment of poverty, decay, despair and crime. As a consequence, the judge stated that "...This county must be willing to pay in dollars and human energy to help prevent juvenile crime and rehabilitate our young offenders(2)..."

Our justice system in Saskatchewan still carries the fascist legacy of some police departments(3), and the abominable mindset of our law and order prosecutors and politicians(4). And today, when forty per cent of our school children are labelled "troubled children(5)" by the business community, school administrators and governments, we have a Premier Romanow promising more policemen to keep our streets safe for our children from our young offenders(6). Premier Romanow believes that the antisocial behaviour of our troubled children is due to their criminal minds, when in fact it is due to the desperate conditions of a large segment of our population who have no jobs, no education, and who live in poverty(7)(8) . Premier Romanow has stated that our future is our children(9), yet he wants more policemen to keep our streets safe and more juveniles locked up in jails. This is our compassionate socialist Premier, a law and order politician who directs economic and social policies to satisfy the vested interests of the few and privileged(10). I hope that our troubled children will get what really they deserve, an opportunity for social equality rather than social despair, and I hope that the words of judge Moore resonate strongly among all of us so that we are "...willing to pay in dollars and human energy to help prevent juvenile crime and rehabilitate young offenders..."

Endnotes

1. Michigan judge sentences boy killer to juvenile detention http://cnn.com/2000/US/01/13/abraham.sentencing.03/index.html

2. Abraham sentenced to juvenile detention, Updated January 13, 2000, 2:00 p.m. http://www.courttv.com/trials/abraham/011300_2ctv.html

3. When Justice Fails: The David Milgaard Story, by Carl Karp, Cecil Rosner, McClelland & Stewart, 1998

4. The law and order mentality of our justice system for protecting the individual rights of Saskatchewan people can be summarized by MLA Serge Kujawa's statement made back in 1991 "...It doesn't matter if Milgaard is innocent... The whole judicial system is at issue-it's worth more than one person..." Milgaard's $10 million compensation: covering up the personal assets of our policing Saskatchewan Government, by Mario deSantis, June 24, 1999

5. Some Sask. Children lost in school system: auditor, by Mark Wyatt, The StarPhoenix, December 15, 1999, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

6. Reducing Crime, Premier Romanow's speech to young children in Yorkton, Kids 'n Kops event, August 25, 1999 http://www.saskndp.com/news/read.php3?id=53 08-26-99

7. 1999 Fall Report, Volume 2, Report of the Provincial Auditor, Saskatchewan, Chapter 2-Education, pages 117-132 http://www.auditor.sk.ca

8. Need of Transformational Changes in Saskatchewan: The biological origin of cognition and implications for Education, by Mario deSantis, September 27,1998

9. Premier Romanow's Speech to the 1998 Provincial NDP Convention http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/saskndp/speech98.html (This Web page is not available at this time anymore, January 14, 2000)

10. Our leaders can't recognize an asset from a hole in the ground, by Mario deSantis, December 2, 1999. An excerpt of this article "...Again, our leaders shift the blame of their shortcomings to outside entities and in doing so they perpetuate a management philosophy of 'break and conquer' and utter confusion for the benefit of the few and privileged..."