Mr Monette

I was arrested twice as a teenager. (No criminal record by grace of laws pertaining to young offenders.) I grew up at a time ('80s and '90s) in Toronto when youth gangs were prevalent in my neighbourhood. However, up until age 16, I had mostly avoided that subculture as I had gravitated towards church when I was young. My first arrest was related to a shoplifting incident that morphed into a bloody affair after trying to run away from mall security when I was confronted for my deed. The second arrest was for an incident at school where the victim was hospitalised and I was expelled. I was held briefly at a youth detention facility on my first arrest. I was initially frightened when placed there, but it turned out that half of the other people detained with me were childhood friends or friends of friends. I was represented in the courts both times by Mr Monette, my Legal Aid-assigned lawyer. The Crown (prosecution) sought six months closed custody upon my second conviction, based on the recommendation of my (unsympathetic) probation officer. However, my lawyer pushed back. His strategy was to seek a more lenient sentence by submitting positive character…

PAW: Talent can be found everywhere

A letter to the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW). IN RESPONSE TO:  PRISON TEACHING INITIATIVE HELPS INCARCERATED STUDENTS EARN DEGREES   I went through the criminal justice system in Toronto when I was a teenager. Luckily I have no criminal record by grace of laws pertaining to young offenders in Canada. I was supposed to have spent six months in juvenile jail but was fortunate enough to have been sentenced to community service in lieu of prison time. Nevertheless, I did spend a brief period behind bars as part of that process. Most of the people in my prison block were childhood friends and friends of friends. (I grew up at a time when youth gangs were prevalent.) All were definitely street savvy, if not book smart. Indeed, many of the people in detention with me seemed just as sharp minded as people I would go on to meet a decade later as a graduate student at Princeton. Professor Jeff Dolven noted in the article (“Prison Teaching Initiative Helps Incarcerated Students Earn Degrees,” June 2021) that “much intelligence and talent and imagination is locked up in prisons.” I would add also that for the most part the talent is also wasted…