The Legault government and the City of Montreal will devote nearly $2 million over three years to a program aimed at convincing young people at risk of committing violent crimes to choose “another way of life.”
The PIVOT project (Preventing and intervening on violence observed in the region) will adopt an approach that will use both prevention and repression to encourage young people to leave the criminal environment. It is inspired by a similar program in Glasgow, Scotland.
“Support will be offered to young people who have already committed a crime to direct them towards another way of life,” explains the Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, at a press conference in Montreal on Monday. We want to show them that there are other options than crime, that they can complete their studies, find a job or treat an addiction. »
On the other hand, the interventions will warn the targeted adolescents and young adults against the consequences of crime. “The second axis aims to clearly communicate the consequences of violence and to apply them quickly in the event of an infraction. What that means is that we are going to meet the offenders, the young people, to tell them that they are being monitored and that they will be arrested and punished again. »
Effective elsewhere
This approach has demonstrated its fruits where it has been used, judge René-André Brisebois, speaker and researcher at the University Institute for Young People in Difficulty of the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de l’Île-de-Montréal, whose organization participates in the program. “In places where it has been deployed, whether in the United States, Scotland or elsewhere in the world, we see, in research, reductions of 33% to 50% in violent crime. »
The program will target a limited number of young people, answers Mr. Brisebois. He mentions “around thirty, maybe forty” people. “If we are able to make a difference in the lives of one, two or three or four of these young people, it will make a huge difference,” he insists.
The intervention comes in a context where gun violence is raising concerns in Montreal. This problem is exacerbated by the illegal sale of weapons, the manufacturing of weapons by 3D printer, the glorification of weapons and the feeling by some young people that they are necessary to protect themselves from possible attacks.
The situation is improving, however, assures Minister Bonnardel, who emphasizes that the number of violent crimes is decreasing.
At the end of the summer, police authorities noted that crime was following a downward trend of 30% this year in Montreal while the number of firearm seizures had tripled, according to various media reports.
“It’s a fight that has not been won, but we are making progress,” the minister said on Monday.