THE STORY OF JÉRÉMY LALANCETTE

Do you remember Jérémy Lalancette? He is the thirteen-year-old who learned about the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) during a presentation at his school. Well, Jérémy has an oddly developed sense of fun and, one summer evening, he yielded to the temptation of stealing an iPad on the seat of a car. This story does not describe the entire process of his arrest and the assessment and guidance provided by our socio-legal partners, but we will tell you how we assisted Jérémy, who acknowledged his responsibility. An YCJA team case worker first had an interview with the victim to inform him of the legal procedures to follow the filing of his complaint and to collect his views on the impact of the incident and his demands for reparation. Jérémy’s neighbour had the opportunity to convey his interest in taking part in a mediation process with Jérémy, during which he could have voiced his opinion on the situation. The case worker drafted a report of her meeting with the victim, indicating that the neighbour had already recovered his property, that he eventually did not want to meet Jérémy, who had already apologized to him for his misdeed, and that he wanted Jérémy to make amends for his action by doing volunteer work in the community

Since the primary measure to consider under the Act concerns the victim and because Jérémy’s neighbour did not want to meet the adolescent, Jérémy agreed to volunteer 20hours of community work. Our case worker first met Jérémy in the presence of his parents Mr. and Mrs. Lalancette, whom we will get to know better in the coming weeks, to inform them about our support services and make sure that Jérémy was paired with the most appropriate community organization. It so happened that the local family centre Centre de la Famille was holding its annual bazaar, and we knew that Geneviève, the supervisor, always needs a hand for this event. This process allowed Jérémy to complete his community work and the case worker to submit a final report to the youth advisor. As a result, the case was settled to everyone’s satisfaction! The support that MAVN provided to Jérémy speaks volumes of the situation of some 400 adolescents and 136 victims who benefited from our services during the 2018-2019 year, as part of our Open up the lines of communication… MAKING AMENDS TOGETHER! program.