Baker Lake (Apr 09/03) - Youth in Baker Lake had the opportunity to take an up-close-and-personal look at how crime affects their community this past month.

Jonah Amitnaaq secondary school teacher Ron Sky said local students attended a seminar focused on youth justice and crime prevention.

The workshop was funded by the federal Department of Justice and delivered by the Mianiqsijit Counselling Agency.

Sky said although local facilitators spent a lot of time talking about the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, its real aim was crime prevention.

"We wanted to teach our local young people about the benefits of crime prevention and how crime affects everyone," said Sky.

"We also wanted to teach them a bit about the new act and how it might affect them."

A survey was conducted at the conclusion of the event, which indicated that the youth who participated would be less likely to get involved with crime.

Sky said the facilitators tried to emphasize being responsible and not getting into trouble in the first place.

But, if they do get in trouble, the way to handle it is to admit what you've done and try to make amends for it.

"That's, really, the first phase in the new act, to try and solve the problem without getting the court process involved.

"That entails getting people from the community interested enough to make recommendations as to how the problem can be addressed without involving the courts."

Sky said community justice committees play a significant role under the new act.

"We had representatives from the Baker committee take part in the seminar, both giving talks and answering questions about their involvement with the process."

Sky said funding was obtained for 40 participants, but that was increased to 60 when more than 90 youth applied to take part.

He has materials available to groups in other communities that may be interested in hosting a similar seminar.

"The Department of Justice will get the results from the seminar we held and may decide, based on that, to hold similar events in other communities.

"It's a great seminar and a good opportunity for kids to get together and spend some time in a positive environment."