Due deference and full respect to Steve Howell for his 30-year career in the youth-justice system.
He ran the old custody centre on Pembroke Street until retirement. He now lectures on youth justice at Camosun College and appears to know the system inside out.
But at a panel discussion Tuesday night on the announced closure of the Victoria Youth Custody Centre, it was hard to understand his rationale for supporting the decision.
It's even harder to understand why the purported case for closing has to be made by a retiree, rather than someone in the current government. It was unilaterally announced with zero consultation.
The only interaction with staff at the centre was a misleading meeting a few months previously, where they were assured closure was not in the cards. The only public explanations to date have been in the form of a telephone conference call with Children and Family Development Minister Stephanie Cadieux on the day of the announcement, and repeated hallway media scrums with her. It leaves the impression the government isn't defending this idea because it knows it's indefensible.
Howell is one of a very small number of people who favour the decision to close the centre to make up a $4.5-million shortfall in federal cost-share funding. Speaking to an audience of more than 100 people -- the second community meeting in two weeks to draw that kind of crowd -- he acknowledged how tough it is to favour the move, when it affects many former colleagues who were sitting right in front of him.
"But I've been struggling with this since the announcement and I've concluded ... the ministry arrived at a reasonable conclusion under some very difficult circumstances."
The two main drivers are the dramatic decline in numbers of young people in custody and the cut in federal funding, both outside the ministry's control, he said. There are 14 boys in the Victoria centre this week, which is funded to handle 24. The objections revolve around the view that closure is bad for kids, and holding them in police cells or moving them to the Burnaby centre is a poor alternative.
But Howell said from a provincial perspective, if that's not good enough for Victoria offenders, it's not good enough everywhere else in B.C. where there is no youth detention centre. (The only other one is in Prince George.)
He said holding to that principle would require building a dozen small centres with minimal occupancy and big expenses.
Asking where the threshold on shrinking occupancy is for closure, Howell said: "I'm not sure 14 is sustainable in terms of the viability of the centre ... People say it shouldn't be about money ... but if you're approaching $1,000 a day, which we are ... I've got to say I don't feel very good about that, I don't think that's good stewardship of public funds. You've got to ask: Could you do something better and different with that kind of money for kids in this province?"
Obviously, he presented the need for a dozen centres as an absurdity. But it belies the question why Vancouver Island should be dragged down to the same level as other communities.
And the idea of doing better things with the money is a non-starter. This is strictly about subtracting spending, not shifting it elsewhere.
He acknowledged that the Burnaby facility is problematic. It's apparently well-known within the system that the Burnaby centre has gang and violence problems.
Howell said: "The solution to the fact that Burnaby is not a great place isn't to keep Victoria running, it's to fix Burnaby."
But again, there's no indication of plans to improve the system. It's a straight subtraction of resources, for budget reasons.
Other panelists made it clear once again the shutdown is going to add costs in Burnaby and in travel and transport time. It's going to add a new level of inconvenience and, most tellingly, it's going to increase pressure on judges to not detain troubled young people who need the in-custody support the Victoria centre offered.
It badly needs a second look.
