In the late 1980s, a large group of social workers, probation officers, family support workers and others working in the trenches were gathered together in Prince George when a news bulletin came on announcing the closing of Riverview.
The announcement was accompanied by a sanctimonious claim that those former patients would be housed in the community with all sorts of resources and wrap-around services to ensure they succeeded within society.
We all looked at one another and pretty much said: “This is a real dumb idea.” The pile of BS being fed to us by the Social Credit government at the time was nothing but malarkey and claptrap.
Those in the know understood that this would lead to huge problems on the street.
And so it came to pass. Sadly, this was all so very predictable.
We now have a critical situation where many terribly ill people who are also often drug-addicted prey on the innocent, causing huge crises in nearly every community.
Until we have the jam as a collective to understand that many of these folks need to be involuntarily detained, nothing will change. They need to be in well-operated places that combine treatment, compassion and caring with firm and strict controls.
They will be released only when they are lucid, clean, sober and willing to co-operate with post-release plans including housing, medication, counselling, etc.
Oh, there will be a hue and cry about individual rights, forced treatments and other well-meaning but naïve ideas. Nonsense.
These folks need to be well enough to have the right to be on the street.
This is not rocket science.
I spent well over 30 years in the justice system as a probation officer and in several other roles.
I dealt with thousands of individuals, scores of judges and prosecutors, hundreds of police officers and many offenders and their victims.
In the common-sense era of yesteryear, bail was denied if a person was likely to not attend court and/or be a further risk to reoffend. And now we have this!
People who constantly offend need to be locked up and not allowed back on the street until we can pretty much have some sort of guarantee that if they do again reoffend, they will return to custody.
Jails are not pretty places and do little for rehabilitation. The one thing they do well enough is give people a time out.
It is very imperfect, but it is what we have. If not, more individuals will be targeted, offenders will be killed by police officers for not being compliant and more front-line responders may end up dead themselves.
We have lost enough Conwst. Shaelyn Yangs. Our powers that be must step up and deal with this awful situation.
Otherwise, they should be very ashamed, as they are are not fit to be decision makers.
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