'Twas the night before Implementation, and each trembling hand
Clutched a Y.C.J.A., the new Law of the Land.
The policy manuals, and sentence calc. forms
Were ready to face bitter sentencing storms.

We'd nestled quite snugly with our old Y.O.A.
At nineteen years old, it had hardly turned grey.
It was still just a kid, its future looked great.
Why, the old J.D.A. served from 1908!

But out in the press there arose such a clatter,
The Ministers scrambled to learn what was the matter.
Away to the pollsters they flew like a flash,
And found that the public favoured chains, and the lash!

As dry laws that before public hurricanes fly,
The Poor Y.O.A was sentenced to die.
So unto the House, in the media too,
The Minister vowed she'd justice renew.

The Lawyers were gathered, the task was begun,
To fashion a bill that would please everyone.
When what to our wondering eyes did appear,
But a Gargantuan Act that struck awe, (plus some fear)

With a sleighful of principles, 'twas a massive creation,
The Mother of all juvenile legislation!
It was chubby and plump, a read would take ages.
No wonder! --it was one hundred seventy one pages!

For closer inspection I read every part,
Up to laws consequential, then back to the start.
I noted the I.S.S.P. and the A.S.H. and the I.R.C.S.
And pondered how new adult sentencing works.

I plunged in the depths of detailed calculations
To figure the dates set for re-integrations
Then I merged supervision in the caring community
With concurrent probation, which is breached with impunity.

I spoke not a word, I obsessed with this work,
Reading warrants, counting dates, like an earnest young clerk.
But as my eyes crossed and blurred my analysis,
My whole system seized up in a legal paralysis.

And after I froze, like Santa's reindeer,
Caught in the headlights........ it all became clear.
The cops and the Courts, and the Crown prosecutors,
Are bound to be lost, (in the absence of tutors.)

The system would stumble and slow to a stop
Charges would dry up,.........and the crime rate would drop!
The Government would chortle and holler and whistle,
This Act fights youth crime like a Patriot missile!'

So I put down the Act, and I staggered to bed.
After Section 190, quite enough had been read.
But I thought to myself, as I turned out the light,
Will I still have a job? If unlucky, I might!"

 -Anonymous poet

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