Former young offender speaks out on Saskatoon's Kilburn Hall young offender facility move

A former young offender says moving young offenders from Saskatoon's open-custody Yarrow Youth Farm is a bad idea.

By the end of March, inmates from Yarrow will be moved into Kilburn Hall, a secure custody facility located in Saskatoon's Buena Vista neighbourhood.

Richard, whose last name is being kept confidential under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, served time at both Kilburn and Yarrow.

"Kilburn Hall is a jail," he said. "It doesn't matter how it gets dressed up, or how they talk about it. It is a jail."

Richard said there is a marked difference between the two facilities. 

The Yarrow Youth Farm, located on the outskirts of Saskatoon, is designed for low-risk young offenders, and doesn't lock its doors. Kilburn Hall, on the other hand, is a secure facility, where doors are locked, and the facility is surrounded by a tall fence.

"(Yarrow) gave me the sense that there was still some trust left," he said. "That they trusted me enough that I was in a facility that wasn't secure, that I could leave."

Richard entered into the young offender system at the age of 15. He said addictions led him into a world of "drinking, drugs and crime." He spent the next four years in the young offender system, and has since turned his life around.

He credits his time at Yarrow for his recovery.

"(Kilburn Hall) didn't make me want to cooperate," he said. "It built the wall even bigger. The emotional wall that I had built up, it just made that wall stronger."

Richard said living at Yarrow taught him basic life skills, like cooking in a "normal, family-style kitchen" and washing clothes in a regular machine. He worries that will be taken away at Kilburn.

"There was that feeling of a home setting," he said. "You knew you were in a facility, but it was a facility that allowed you to feel like you had some freedom."

Empty rooms

The provincial Ministry of Justice said it is shutting down Yarrow, as well as other youth facilities across the province, because many of them are only half full.

According to provincial statistics, young offender facilities were only at an average of 52 per cent capacity last year. By 2018, the province hopes to consolidate all of its young offenders into three institutions in Prince Albert, Regina and Saskatoon.

The ministry has promised all the staff at Yarrow will be transferred to Kilburn Hall, and all of the programming will be kept the same.

Earlier this week, angry residents of Buena Vista confronted ministry officials with safety concerns, as well as worries that open-custody young offenders would now be receiving less adequate care.

The Yarrow Youth Farm is scheduled to be closed March 31.