Premier Roy Romanow's books: balancing the budget by incarcerating young offenders
Nipawin - August 3, 2000 - By: Mario deSantis
delinquents of the future	After taking away the educational rights of our children because they are too poor to be
	able to learn in our schools(1), our government has taken steps to make our children the
	delinquents of the future and in so doing perpetuating the law and order vision of
	Premier Roy Romanow(2).
6,683 children	The books of the province are balanced, while the huge liability towards our children(3)
	is being written off by incarcerating our children and dumping them away from the cities
	in the winter when they become adults(4). This dire situation of our children is being
	pictured by the recent release by Statistics Canada of the number of young offenders
	into custody(5). For the fiscal year 1998-99, Saskatchewan convicted 6,683 children,
	that is 50% more than Manitoba, and only 25% less than Quebec, a province with seven
	times the population of Saskatchewan.
criminalize the adolescent	Commenting on the problem of our children, Sanjeeve Anand, a professor at the University
	of Saskatchewan, has stated
	"The problem is Saskatchewan tends to incarcerate people who
	shouldn't be incarcerated. Kids vandalized stuff, they steal stuff.
	They do these sorts of things and grow out of it. We tend to
	criminalize the adolescent who blows off steam."
economic growth	With the release of the last budget, our government has been boasting the 6th consecutive
	year of economic growth at the expense of the weakest and most important segment of
	our society: our children. This is certainly not the way to 'keep building'
	Mr. Premier Romanow!
------------Endnotes:
1. -	Saskatchewan Troubled Children: 40% of our school children, by Mario deSantis, January 14, 2000
2.	The system is not more worth than one person's rights, by Mario deSantis, July 27, 2000
3. -	Honourable Eric Cline has not balanced the budget yet, he forgot our school-children, by Mario deSantis, April 2, 2000
4. -	Mayor Dayday's GNP Accounting: writing off our children, dumping people outside city limits, and building the Synchrotron, by Mario deSantis, March 1, 2000
5. -	Sask. takes tough love approach to youth crime: more young criminals dragged into court than in any other province, by Leslie Perreaux, The StarPhoenix, August 2, 2000, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
	This morning's picture "the future" was taken at 5:50 AM this morning and shows the fog obsuring what is to be.