Helping Native youth a vocation for ex-offender

Page 10

Native youth court worker Fraser Thompson can understand the frustration and agony his young clients face.

He knows low self-esteem kill the motivation to get an education or to lead a normal life.

Thompson knows because he has been in those shoes.

The 32-year-old Cree man has been working for the last five years as a Youth Court advocate with Native Counselling Services (NCS), which helps indigenous people across the province understand Alberta courts.

Fraser knows the life of a young Native in trouble with the law. Because, he too, found himself in a lot of trouble as a youth growing up in Edmonton's river valley community of Cloverdale.

"There was constantly trouble to get into--you didn't have to look far," Thompson recalled.

"(Kids) were expected to be hardcore."

There were many Native families in his old neighborhood which was steeped in poverty. Older teenagers made crime a part of growing up, coercing their younger brothers and sisters into taking part.

Thompson grew up poor, as the oldest of seven brothers and sisters. After his father walked out on the family when he was 14-years-old, his mother single-handedly raised the family on her own.

As a teenager, Thompson ended up in jail, not for long, but long enough to realize crime was a dead end.

But it wasn't until his alcoholic mother's tragic suicide when he was 17, that he decided to turn his life around.

Now 32, the well-groomed, articulate young man is driven by strong ideals.

Thompson believes Native people must receive fair treatment in Canada's judicial system. As a court worker with young offenders, he is fighting to ensure that happens.

He acts as a liaison between juveniles, police, social workers and teachers, making sure Aboriginal delinquent youths are properly represented by Legal Aid.

On a regular work day, Thompson counsels three to five kids.

Native people, who tend to be humble and shy, are often intimidated by the legal system, he noted. So Thompson offers information and advice, helping them comprehend the judicial system.

His job is to help young offenders understand the charges they face, which range from breaking and enter to murder.

"Some want to plead guilty right away," he explained.

Fraser encourages his clients to change their lives, to get out of the rut of poverty and crime and strive for a better life.

"We're all the result of our environment," he explains. Many poverty-stricken youth, says Thompson, fall into a life of crime that continues on into adulthood.

"All of the young people I've spoken to are very easy to converse with. They are all very bright, energetic children when you give them the chance to be," says Fraser.

He lays out the facts and challenges them, asking if they want to continue the way they're going and whether they enjoy it.

Thompson has seen young offenders grow up to be adult criminals, some dying in their life of crime, others getting locked up.

Before training with NCS as a court worker, he moved from job to job. But he held a strong belief that there was a better life for him.

Over time he also came to believer, there was a better life for Native people across Canada than a life of poverty, which has so many trapped in its tentacles.

It's poverty, he believes, which spawns alcoholism and crime, in the Native community.

He says federal mistreatment of Native people is the biggest obstacle to overcoming poverty and crime. Through the denial of self-government, the failure to reimburse lost resource revenues generated on Native land, the threat to post-secondary education funding and the mismanagement of money meant for Native bands and people and the insufficient funding for business ventures, it has kept Native people where they are.

Thompson criticized the federal government for spending so little money on preventative measures and programs that will stop young people from continuing to commit crimes.

"I find so much money being spent after the fact. For example, it costs bout $165 (a day) to reside a young offender at the young offenders' institution," he says.

"How much money do we spend before the fact?," he asked.

Consistency and stability is the secret of a good life, he says. And when young offenders are released, they find themselves back in their old life of crime and poverty, he noted.

To help them leave that behind, young offenders should be given support and be offered the opportunity to get an education and to take self-help programs, says Fraser.

His answer and dream is to see and elders' residence built in Edmonton, which could serve as a cultural center for Native youth, as well as a place where adults and youth could get an education.

"Education is something you have to use to your benefit," Thompson declares.

Without it, job options are reduced and doors to further education remain closed, he said.

In his work, Thompson continues to face barriers. The often stereotypical view judges have of young Native offenders is a major headache.

"People look at a lot of the kids and because of their inconsistency and criminal activity, they (feel the kids) are no longer useful, that they are just on a self-destruct mode (and should be jailed)," he says.

" But you can take a negative situation and turn it into a positive one if you work at it. Anything that's going to benefit you will involve a lot of hard work."

For Fraser Thomson, his hard work as a youth worker with Native people, is slowly paying off.