This past week in Justice Committee I learned that the NDP government has a fund of money set aside to purchase things like Slurpees, donuts, baseball tickets, clothes and a host of other goodies for high risk criminals and car thieves. If you find that unbelievable, so did I. But sadly, it’s true.

This revelation came forward after two very tragic and high profile cases surrounding probation and court orders. Court orders are directions that a judge places on an offender before they are released on probation in the community. They typically include a curfew time, and instructions to stay away from drugs and alcohol and in the case of a young offender, instructions to attend school.

Last week we learned that the young offender who was driving a stolen SUV down Portage Avenue in 2008 and who crashed into and killed a cab driver had breached his court orders 24 times. Yet this high risk young offender wasn’t reported to police even once for breaching his court orders because under the NDP system of justice in our province court orders and breaches are routinely ignored. Had they been reported, as they should have been, this high risk car thief might have been in jail and not racing down Portage Avenue and an innocent man might be alive today.

Only a few days later it was revealed that another young offender who was ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet as part of his court order was involved in a violent home invasion earlier this year where a family was terrorized. The young offender didn’t have his electronic ankle bracelet on however because probation officers forgot to place it on him and then decided to not put it on even though the court had ordered it as part of the offender’s probation. Under the NDP government, orders of the court are now being ignored all together and it puts the safety of all Manitobans at risk.

All this led to questions in the Justice Committee about how the NDP probations system works. As part of this discussion, it was revealed that the NDP puts aside money to hand out treats to high risk offenders. These treats include Slurpees, donuts, clothing and baseball tickets. Law enforcement sources also say that video games and other things have been given to high risk offenders.

The problem with the NDP approach to young offenders is that it is focused on the soft approach of overlooking court orders, overlooking breaches of court orders, and handing out gifts simply in the hope that high risk offenders will respond favorably to them. This approach clearly hasn’t been working as youth crime has escalated in our province under the NDP and there have been tragic consequences. The NDP needs to start standing up for Manitobans and stop handing out treats to criminals.