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Devon Jones

Devon Jones

Founding Director of YAAACE (Youth Association for Academics, Athletics and Character Education), a Toronto-based youth organization, and a Toronto District School Board educator.

Sep 22, 2026

15:12
Mm-hmm.
15:14
And if it exists, how can we aggressively put mechanisms in place that can eradicate and disrupt what's taking place in a very real and very intentional way? So, I mean, there's always government and policies, and there's always community also.
15:34
I think we have to say it's not okay for children to die.
15:39
It's not okay for them to kill each other.
15:40
And We then have to approach this in a very intentional way.
15:51
The fact is, and it's also such an expensive phenomenon, like each homicide costs this country about between $5 and $7 million.
16:00
That's billions of dollars annually each homicide costs this country, not to mention the loss in human capital, not to mention There's a discourse at YACE we call urban violence, trauma, stress disorder.

12 MINS LATER

28:36
Devon, any last words from you?
9:11
What's that conversation like?
9:13
It all depends where they are on the social continuum.
9:18
You have young people who are there around employment.
9:23
You have others who are there around, you know, early academic intervention.
9:27
You have others who are there because there's a level of involvement in the culture of retaliatory reprisal violence.
9:34
You know, they're just coming out of custody or they're in custody.
9:37
You know, so we have...
11:11
Where in the system is this failing? And not only the people that are being impacted in the communities here, but in prevention as well.

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