Concerns over habitual young offenders in Riverview.
RCMP Inspector Jonathan White’s monthly update was provided to Riverview Town Council this week. In it, several incidents of youth involved in car thefts and other crimes.
White indicated that in many incidents, the youth appear in court but are released from custody a short time later, only to reoffend.
“It’s very frustrating,” Councillor Heath Johnson stated. “I feel like every month you come here and talk about prolific youth known to the RCMP. I don’t know how many youths you’re talking about, if it’s the same ones, month after month, but you know, they keep putting the public in danger by stealing vehicles and fleeing at high rates of speed, and yet they keep getting released by the court. What is happening that they keep getting released over and over again?”
Inspector White says the RCMP are doing as much as they can on their end to bring them before the courts. “Some of you might know, two years ago, we had one of our prolific youths, who had up to fifty 50 charges. We remanded him several times, and what it led to was actually a 24-hour, six-month curfew at home, which he was breaching pretty quickly. So that’s what we’re dealing with when we’re dealing with youth in the criminal code.”
White says part of his responsibility is to keep his members motivated to do the work, bring them [youth] before the courts. “We can hopefully lobby you and your team to put pressure on the local government and the courts,” White told Riverview Town Councillors during his presentation on Monday.
Riverview Mayor Andrew Leblanc said in a social media post that he’ll be requesting a meeting with the province to share concerns over the judicial system.
