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The move makes it hard for low-income families to travel to Edmonton to visit their children, and the young offenders will be more likely to keep in touch with their lawyers only by electronic means. As Shannon Prithipaul, president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association, said: “These are people we’re talking about, they’re children that we’re talking about. They’re not just cattle they can move from one place to another.”

Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Jonathan Denis said in a statement that “consolidating services available to young offenders will continue to help them get their lives on track and return to our communities.”

They should be staying in their communities. That’s the best way to help them get their lives on track. The government’s plan to move them to Edmonton is positively Dickensian.

Alberta Union of Provincial Employees’ vice-president Erez Raz stated what is obvious to everyone, except Denis: “If you’re in Edmonton, you might not see your family member for months on end. That doesn’t help someone be reintegrated into society.”

Reintegration and rehabilitation are key for juvenile offenders who are not, after all, going to spend their lives in prison. They are going to be released in fairly short order, and everything that can be done to get them back on the straight and narrow must be done. One of those things is to keep them close to their families.

The government clearly needs to rethink this one.