I recently had a good friend of mine get caught stealing small amounts of money from the employee break room at his work. He was caught over a few different occasions on camera, but never confronted until the other day when the police showed up at his work to arrest him. He was questioned and given a green piece of paper with 2 dates on it (one for court and one at police station).

Now he's never committed a crime before, has no previous record, no previous arrests or anything of the sort. He is 17 (still covered under young offenders act?) and in total, the theft was for less than $50 over a period of 3 to 4 months. The amount of money stolen never exceeded $20, but was regularly $2 to $5. He also lost his job.

What would be the best way to go about this? For such a small amount, a lawyer doesn't seem worth it, although I have no knowledge of the criminal justice system or youth criminal act or any of that stuff, and I'm not sure what to do or where to go from here, and neither is he.

The actual slip of paper received by him is light green in colour, and says the following (with french and non important information removed to make it easier to read)

(THIS COPY FOR ACCUSED)

FORM 9
(SEC. 493)
C.C.C.

APPEARANCE NOTICE ISSUED BY A PEACE OFFICER
To a person not yet charged with an offence

YOUTH JUSTICE COURT
CANADA
PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

To Friends Name
Of Friends Address

You are alleged to have committed:
Theft under $5000.00 contrary to the crimminal (yes, the officer put 2 m's in criminal) code and the amendments there to

1. You are required to attend court on: date in the youth justice court

2. You are also required to appear on: date for the purposes of the identification of criminals act

Date and signature at bottom after terms

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, he is still covered under the Young Offenders Act since he is not yet 18 at the time of the crime. Note, it is now called the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

He will get probation, maybe some community service at most.

He should contact a lawyer though.

If he really doesn't want to, then have one of his parents go down and try to work something out with the prosecutor and plead guilty with a plea bargain.

Well the parents already know, however he doesn't want to get them involved at all if possible. How should he go about contacting a lawyer? What's it going to cost? Money is an issue here, although he has no problem paying it back, financially, he would have a problem, as he was kicked out and is living on his own. Although I'm sure he could borrow or make enough to pay back what he stole, I don't see him being able to hire a lawyer.

Thanks for the answers thus far.

If his parents are that childish to kick their 17 year old son out of the house for a simply mistake, then I would act just as childish back and call Social Services on them.

His folks can NOT kick a minor child (under 18) out of the house.

That aside, who is he living with now?

The law does require him to have a guardian. If he can't find anyone, a lawyer will not cost that much, it is not a lot of work, 1 phone call/meeting with the prosecutor and then 1 court date when he pleads guilty.

Look in the yellow pages.

And I would deal with his parent situation as well. Kicking a minor child out because of a silly mistake of stealing is very wrong, and very illegal.