Sun Youth has a long history in Crime Prevention by keeping children and youth active with positive role models

Ann St. Arnaud

Sun Youth

Did you know that Sun Youth hosted the 18th annual training symposium of the International Society of Crime prevention practitioners in 1995? As its name suggests, the ISCPP is an international organization whose mission is to “encourage crime prevention education and practice in public, private and voluntary sectors”. At the time, our founder, Earl De La Peralle was its first Canadian President Elect, and the symposium was held from October 17th to the 21st at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

Things have changed since the 1990’s but we still are very active in the crime prevention sector of Montreal. For Crime Prevention week, we propose a recap of today’s crime prevention programs at Sun Youth and how you can contribute to them. First and foremost, the core of Sun Youth since its creation: our sports and recreation programs. The reason behind the creation of Sun Youth was for kids to stay safe, active and out of trouble. Our programs for children were deeply affected by COVID last year but are now back to the forefront of our programming. The perfect way to prevent crime, we believe, is to give a sense of belonging to kids, and our sports teams do exactly that: our Hornets are “one heart, one team, one family” and have been so for generations. More than 2000 children participate in our activities every year.

By encouraging public spiritedness in our society with our Good Samaritan program and New Bikes distribution, we also make sure to encourage people whose actions have had a positive influence on their community or who have shown exceptional courage in difficult situations. In this way we promote altruism, courage and good citizenship. On the opposite side of the crime prevention spectrum, we also work with police forces to offer rewards leading to the arrest of people suspected of criminal activity. Police detectives ask for our help in trying to solve cases and by doing so, we help prevent other crimes being committed.

Finally, it is proven that the best way to prevent crime and poverty is education and our free tutoring and scholarships to underprivileged children. When all prevention fails though, we are left helping crime victims. In the last 10 years, we’ve helped more than 350 crime victims with food, clothing and temporary lodging. Our partners in this program, the SPVM and the CAVAC (Centre d’aide aux victimes d’actes criminels) use this service more and more every year. Last year only, 61 people were referred to us for help, most of them women victims of conjugal violence or victims of sexual exploitation.