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Emil Brandon is a 46-year-old product of the system.

His childhood was a revolving door of foster homes, his teen years spent mostly on the streets or in jail. Crime and addiction were learned behaviours, he says.

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“It was you see someone, rob them. That was just my life. I was trained to live that life.”

For years he stole and robbed people on the street. He was often arrested. After a conviction, a judge would order him to follow certain rules, but he often couldn’t or simply wouldn’t. Many of his subsequent arrests were for breaking those court-imposed rules by drinking a beer, staying out past his curfew, hanging out with known gang members or not being at the address where he was supposed to reside.

Those charges — known generally as breach offences — are what kept him in the system, says Brandon, who now lives in Saskatoon.

“There are so many people out there with untold stories who are sitting in jail rotting because the system says, ‘Oh, you breached.’ I stayed in the system, in and out, my whole life.”