the skeets of tomorrow
in one month's time i will be getting called to the bar and i will be a real lawyer! no longer a baby lawyer (aka an articling student), but more of a lawyer on training wheels. for my last trick as a baby lawyer, i had to spend two weeks at legal aid. coming from a full service corporate law firm where i do 75% corporate work...it was very different.
i was told while i was shadowing some lawyers that the only way to make it through life as a legal aid lawyer without becoming full-on depressed is to learn to laugh at what's going on around you. a rape joke here, a joke about murder there...you know how it is. one part dark, two parts mandatory for survival.
while i was at youth justice court i was shocked at how young and sweet faced some of the accused were. you know that snow-white hair that children have? before they grow up and their hair changes to sandy or dirty blond? i saw a child with snow-white hair and a baby face who was alleged to have committed assault with a weapon. i mean, i get it, the definition of weapon is broad, and they don't read out the particulars of these charges at first appearances so it could have been a swimming pool noodle for all i know (somehow i doubt it)...but still. that chubby-cheeked cherub wasn't meant to be at court. now i can't forget his face.
anyway, i was becoming depressed. and i suddenly found myself thinking - youth justice court is the summer camp of tomorrow's skeets. it made me smile for a minute and chuckle to myself. i even tweeted that shit! i really thought it was objectively funny. but, funny or not, finding myself making that joke was a dark experience.
these kids are so young - they are assaulting people and committing identity theft and fraud when they are children. the worst part, though, isn't that they do the shit that they do. as we all know, kids get up to badness all the time. it's part of being a kid! and you could see it in some of them that things had spiralled and it shouldn't have happened. they were the ones who were worried about midterms conflicting with their next court date; the ones whose dads had gone with them to their court date. that's normal - or at least edging on normal.
the ones whose faces i don't think i can forget weren't like that. between their vacant expressions, their potty mouths before court was in session, and the beats they had blasting outside their courtroom, there was an understanding of the system; an understanding of "breaches"; an understanding of court etiquette and how you address the judge. the kids i can't forget are the ones who were on first name bases with the officers who arrested them and had been to court before to testify for their friends. the ones i can't forget include the boy who had just turned 16 and carried himself like the best 26-year-old skeets i know, itching to get out to smoke his draw before recess ended and court was back in session. being at court, with a lawyer, in front of a judge - these things have become normal to them.
but, i kept thinking to myself, this isn't normal. maybe it's not true that they're the skeets of tomorrow. but in my heart i know it is. these kids will be in the system from now until forever. that is the uncomfortable feeling that i know to be true.
i've argued endlessly that most crime is systemic; that crime is perpetuated in that it is committed by those who will commit it again and again because they were born into a family that was committing crime and so generations of [Surname] commit crimes.
and, you know, people have argued back, with the best example being prostitution, of course. and i've said "well, if we legalize prostitution now and re-humanize those who have been de-humanized, we can teach them to teach their children better. we can protect them, and encourage them to protect their children better". and the retorts went, "but, emily, have you seen how much money a prostitute can make?"
i haven't.
but here, in this sad case of youth justice court, i don't see how you can retort back to me. a brief survey of the courtroom quickly draws attention to the regulars and to those who came there quite by accident - the former vastly overcoming the latter in numbers. these children who commit assault, where is their financial gain? well, in my opinion, it's not a gain. it's just the reality they've come to understand. it's the reality that they accept. their reality.
be it that they are from families of crime or lost somewhere in the system foster care, these kids find sitting in that court room - hats off, speaking to "your honour" - to be as normal as i find taking an 11am coffee break. this systemic problem might be the root of my callous joke, but callous or not - i sadly can't say that i'm wrong.
i was really eager to do my legal aid rotation. when i applied to law school i had every intention of working in the area of human rights generally, and, at the time, refugee law specifically. so, the opportunity to spend some time with legal aid, providing access to justice, seemed like the exact cup of tea i wanted. i was over the moon!
like all things, though, dipping your toe in cold water comes at a cost. the cost for me came on tuesday, january 14th, and in the form of youth justice court.
i was told while i was shadowing some lawyers that the only way to make it through life as a legal aid lawyer without becoming full-on depressed is to learn to laugh at what's going on around you. a rape joke here, a joke about murder there...you know how it is. one part dark, two parts mandatory for survival.
while i was at youth justice court i was shocked at how young and sweet faced some of the accused were. you know that snow-white hair that children have? before they grow up and their hair changes to sandy or dirty blond? i saw a child with snow-white hair and a baby face who was alleged to have committed assault with a weapon. i mean, i get it, the definition of weapon is broad, and they don't read out the particulars of these charges at first appearances so it could have been a swimming pool noodle for all i know (somehow i doubt it)...but still. that chubby-cheeked cherub wasn't meant to be at court. now i can't forget his face.
anyway, i was becoming depressed. and i suddenly found myself thinking - youth justice court is the summer camp of tomorrow's skeets. it made me smile for a minute and chuckle to myself. i even tweeted that shit! i really thought it was objectively funny. but, funny or not, finding myself making that joke was a dark experience.
these kids are so young - they are assaulting people and committing identity theft and fraud when they are children. the worst part, though, isn't that they do the shit that they do. as we all know, kids get up to badness all the time. it's part of being a kid! and you could see it in some of them that things had spiralled and it shouldn't have happened. they were the ones who were worried about midterms conflicting with their next court date; the ones whose dads had gone with them to their court date. that's normal - or at least edging on normal.
the ones whose faces i don't think i can forget weren't like that. between their vacant expressions, their potty mouths before court was in session, and the beats they had blasting outside their courtroom, there was an understanding of the system; an understanding of "breaches"; an understanding of court etiquette and how you address the judge. the kids i can't forget are the ones who were on first name bases with the officers who arrested them and had been to court before to testify for their friends. the ones i can't forget include the boy who had just turned 16 and carried himself like the best 26-year-old skeets i know, itching to get out to smoke his draw before recess ended and court was back in session. being at court, with a lawyer, in front of a judge - these things have become normal to them.
but, i kept thinking to myself, this isn't normal. maybe it's not true that they're the skeets of tomorrow. but in my heart i know it is. these kids will be in the system from now until forever. that is the uncomfortable feeling that i know to be true.
i've argued endlessly that most crime is systemic; that crime is perpetuated in that it is committed by those who will commit it again and again because they were born into a family that was committing crime and so generations of [Surname] commit crimes.
and, you know, people have argued back, with the best example being prostitution, of course. and i've said "well, if we legalize prostitution now and re-humanize those who have been de-humanized, we can teach them to teach their children better. we can protect them, and encourage them to protect their children better". and the retorts went, "but, emily, have you seen how much money a prostitute can make?"
i haven't.
but here, in this sad case of youth justice court, i don't see how you can retort back to me. a brief survey of the courtroom quickly draws attention to the regulars and to those who came there quite by accident - the former vastly overcoming the latter in numbers. these children who commit assault, where is their financial gain? well, in my opinion, it's not a gain. it's just the reality they've come to understand. it's the reality that they accept. their reality.
be it that they are from families of crime or lost somewhere in the system foster care, these kids find sitting in that court room - hats off, speaking to "your honour" - to be as normal as i find taking an 11am coffee break. this systemic problem might be the root of my callous joke, but callous or not - i sadly can't say that i'm wrong.
posted by emily at 3:36 PM
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