{"id":12349,"date":"2018-04-12T12:25:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T16:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ojen.ca?p=12349"},"modified":"2018-04-12T12:25:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T16:25:44","slug":"youth-police-dialogues-public-legal-education-social-change-interview-mara-clarke-jessica-reekie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ojen.ca\/en\/youth-police-dialogues-public-legal-education-social-change-interview-mara-clarke-jessica-reekie\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth-Police Dialogues, public legal education, and social change: An interview with Mara Clarke and Jessica Reekie"},"content":{"rendered":"
This interview has been cross-posted at the PLE Learning Exchange<\/a>. It has been edited for flow.<\/div>\n

As sole-purpose PLEI (public legal education and information) organizations, we are constantly wrestling with the question of what PLEI can and can\u2019t do. We hear a lot of questions from community workers about how we can use PLEI to empower clients and support movements for social change. For over 10 years, the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN)<\/a> has been carefully refining how we work with vulnerable youth around criminal law and policing issues. I sat down with Mara Clarke, OJEN\u2019s Director of Outreach (MC), and Executive Director Jessica Reekie (JR), to discuss this process.<\/p>\n

MT: Thank you for being here. OJEN\u2019s main policing-issues program right now is our Youth-Police Dialogues (YPD). What exactly is a YPD?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MC: The original request for a YPD came from a youth group at Scarlettwood Court that was experiencing issues with their local police force in 2007. We found that in other programs, youth wanted to problem-share, to talk about what they were experiencing, but they didn\u2019t have the communication skills to talk about it in a way that was digestible to the audience, which was made up of lawyers or police officers. It would turn into swearing, shouting, crying, and stomping out. So their message wasn\u2019t being heard.<\/p>\n

With YPDs we still start with problem-sharing, but we move to problem-solving. We built a program where youth work on their communication skills, learning how to advocate for themselves and share their ideas. But they are also in a space with officers, in close proximity, sometimes learning something together, having some down time where real conversations can happen, and the youth and police both get to question some of the myths they have about the other side. Usually youth and police aren\u2019t in community like that but for the times when they\u2019re being policed or doing police work. So this is an opportunity to enter community without that baggage.<\/p>\n

MT: So what law do you cover? What\u2019s the core PLEI content?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JR: In YPDs we spend a lot of time in advance talking to the community partners to find out what the local issues are. In Toronto, that might be your rights on community housing property. In Ottawa, it was about police oversight, so that got a big focus. Like Mara said, in all our YPDs we start by letting youth problem-share, talk about their community, and then we\u2019d introduce content about their rights with police, spend some time working on communication skills, and help youth refine how they\u2019re going to present their views and opinions. We may not even bring in legal content until session 3 or 4 when we have a rapport. We bring in officers periodically throughout to let them get to know each other, so when you get to the culminating activity, which is about sharing perspectives, they\u2019re in a better place to do that even though it can be such a charged topic. Sometimes you can\u2019t have officers present at the very start, and other places you can. That decision is made on the advice of program partners who know the community well.<\/p>\n

MC: The PLEI content about the law also includes some things that aren\u2019t as tangible, that are about how the system actually works. We\u2019re up front about the fact that there are laws and rules on the books, and there are different realities on the street. So we may spend some time talking about the operation of the police officer\u2019s mind \u2013 what they\u2019re seeing, what they look for, how things escalate, for example with the use of force. What puts them \u201cin hot pursuit\u201d? How does police discretion work? These things aren\u2019t written but they really help to form the decision-making of the officer and impact how an interaction will go.<\/p>\n

MT: And so that\u2019s one of the ways that a YPD is different from a traditional, \u201cknow your rights\u201d type of workshop?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JR: Yes. The officer is there to talk about those intangible things you don\u2019t normally get in a PLEI workshop but which make all the difference. Young people don\u2019t usually get access to those insights. No one really does! So we\u2019re trying to fill in those gaps.<\/p>\n

MC: And they really help inform a young person\u2019s decision-making \u2013 when youth know more about the rules of engagement, they change what their response is going to be. We\u2019re having these conversations early, in a safe space, and then this knowledge is applied later when you\u2019ve got emotions running high and other elements in play. Behaviour is not guaranteed to change, but participants always say they would do things differently after the YPD. That\u2019s important because it shows us that everybody just wants to know the rules of engagement. How can they be expected to play by those rules if they don\u2019t know what they are?<\/p>\n

MT: So who\u2019s teaching the legal content? Is that the police officer too?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MC: We bring in criminal defence lawyers and sometimes Crowns. Usually the ideal situation is having both.<\/p>\n

JR: In some very charged situations, we\u2019ve had defence counsel only, because of the perceived association between Crowns and police. To achieve a perceived power balance in the room, we had to ensure that we included lawyers who were seen as allies (in the eyes of the youth).<\/p>\n

MC: They\u2019re typically lawyers we\u2019ve worked with before or who have some knowledge of working with youth. The youth are going to have lots of questions around being stopped and detained \u2013 we\u2019ll go through a scenario and what might flow from that incident: what does detention look like, what happens when the officer asks you questions but you don\u2019t want to talk, we go through all of that. But one key role for lawyers, even beyond the knowledge they bring, is to help develop the youth\u2019s communication skills. We bring in lawyers who themselves have strong communication and facilitation skills, and they work with the facilitator to talk about aggressive vs passive vs assertive communication styles and help give the youth chances to practice how they want to communicate their ideas. In some programs, we talk about things like empathy and evidence \u2013 things lawyers use in their daily jobs that will help the youth understand different perspectives and look for reliable sources of information.<\/p>\n

JR: A lot of that happens through role playing and skits, which are a major part of the YPD program.<\/p>\n

MT: Is that the \u201cdialogue\u201d part? What do you ask the young people to do with what they\u2019ve learned?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MC: Yes, that\u2019s the culminating activity. Where youth are talking to officers about how they can improve youth-police relations in the community. So offering their ideas and some of the things they\u2019d like to see officers doing. And the officers comment on those observations and sit with youth to brainstorm and build out some of the ideas they have shared.<\/p>\n

MT: Is that a big, facilitated group conversation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JR: It varies. In some cases, youth spend a few weeks putting together a skit they use to show what they see happening, what they see is problematic, and they\u2019ll use that as a jumping off point. There\u2019s always some sort of facilitated discussion which allows young people to present, officers to say they\u2019ve heard it, and share their perspective. It goes back and forth. The culminating activity often affects how officers see the youth, and how well they understand how the youth see them.<\/p>\n

MT: So do you think there\u2019s a role for PLEI in supporting social movements?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MC: People can\u2019t be expected to play by rules they don\u2019t understand. They can\u2019t be expected to pursue the regular course of changing those rules without some understanding. Often we go out and see that people are passionate and communities are even organized, but they\u2019re operating off of misinformation. And it spreads like wildfire and makes problems worse. We\u2019ve seen whole communities that thought if an officer came to your door in a raid environment, they need to show you their search warrant on the spot \u2013 and if they didn\u2019t, you had every legal right to block your door and not let them in. The whole community thought that. (It\u2019s not true, and it could lead to huge problems when someone acts on it.)<\/p>\n

JR: One particular example comes to mind. We had a situation where we were being invited into Toronto communities for regular 101 type sessions on your rights with police. We held these sessions on Toronto Community Housing property, and we heard from the youth that officers kept asking them questions, saying, \u201cNo, we\u2019re agents, you have to answer my questions.\u201d The youth asked us what that meant. We didn\u2019t know, defence counsel didn\u2019t know \u2013 nobody knew! This happened not long after the Danzig shootings and tensions between certain communities and the police were running high.<\/p>\n

MC: Yeah, we worked with the Community Crisis Response Program at the City of Toronto and other partners to get some stakeholders together and find out what was actually happening. At the table was a police officer with great historical knowledge who brought up the fact that Toronto Police Service and TCH had an \u201cAgent of the Landlord\u201d agreement, which meant TCH gave them the right to act with the delegated powers of the landlord when on TCH property. This impacts a lot of your rights, including when you have to show ID and that kind of thing. So we developed new programs, in response to community requests, to respond to that particular issue.<\/p>\n

We try to give information about legal rights, but also to build skills and relationships to increase people\u2019s ability to act. The community is now very aware and very vocal about these issues \u2013 and, of course, about carding and related issues more generally, for larger social reasons we can\u2019t take credit for.<\/p>\n

It matters because those people thought they were just being treated differently because they were (mostly) people of colour living in social housing. How could they challenge or change that? You think, I\u2019m going to live here, and I can\u2019t and don\u2019t want to change my colour, so what can I possibly do? Now they know there are more layers, and some of those layers are actually addressable. You\u2019ll have more success trying to change a policy vs someone\u2019s gut instincts about you. Now they are mobilized in a grassroots way to pressure the city to work closer with the Toronto Police Service around these issues.<\/p>\n

MT: So that starts with doing rights-based education and believing people when they say, \u201cthat\u2019s not how it has been happening for us, in our community.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

JR: That\u2019s right. At the same time, I\u2019m nervous about people who say \u201cKnowledge is Power\u201d when it comes to public legal education. That\u2019s not completely true. Knowledge is part of it, and then there\u2019s a whole lot more people need in order to be change makers.<\/p>\n

MC: I give the analogy in programs that I could know how to build a treehouse, but if I don\u2019t have the materials and tools and I don\u2019t have the time to put in and do the work, I can\u2019t build the house! And that\u2019s where knowledge on its own falls down. You need skills and resources and opportunities. Many of those things people have already, and some we can help build.JR: So our approach to PLEI is an expansive one that considers all the other pieces.<\/p>\n

PLEI can evolve. This is one piece.<\/p>\n

JR: It should be contextual, always, and responding to a community\u2019s real life. That\u2019s where we can support people in advocating for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This interview has been cross-posted at the PLE Learning Exchange. It has been edited for flow. As sole-purpose PLEI (public legal education and information) organizations, we are constantly wrestling with the question of what PLEI can and can\u2019t do. We hear a lot of questions from community workers about how we can use PLEI to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","inline_featured_image":false,"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[47,59,326,331],"class_list":["post-12349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-ojen-blog","tag-justice-education","tag-policing","tag-youth-police-relationship","tag-experiential-learning"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Michelle Thompson","author_link":"https:\/\/ojen.ca\/en\/author\/michelle\/"},"yoast_head":"\nYouth-Police Dialogues, public legal education, and social change: An interview with Mara Clarke and Jessica Reekie - OJEN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ojen.ca\/en\/youth-police-dialogues-public-legal-education-social-change-interview-mara-clarke-jessica-reekie\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Youth-Police Dialogues, public legal education, and social change: An interview with Mara Clarke and Jessica Reekie - OJEN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This interview has been cross-posted at the PLE Learning Exchange. 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