Who are the people in your neighbourhood…

We'll meet at the entrance to the Arboretum around 1 am. The groups should consist of no more than five people - the rest can wait their turn. Some advice to those of you who have brought colouring books: colouring outside the lines does not make you a non-conformist.

During the first stretch of the tour we'll try to keep our heads lowered. The woodland creatures know how to take advantage of our paranoia.

A couple years back a man came down here, folded his clothes neatly, went in the water and drowned. Had it been a suicide, as some suggest, the image of the folded clothes patiently awaiting the return of their owner take on an eerie significance.

We've almost reached the corner of Victoria and Stone Road so I'm going to assume that some of you are starting to peak. Only thing to worry about out here are the cars, you'd be surprised how quickly passing headlights can become the inaugural fireworks of a messianic epiphany.

Up ahead is the Wellington Detention Centre. I often wonder what it's like being locked up in a prison while less than a mile away thousands of students mill about on a university campus. Downwind to all the fucking and drinking.

Our ballyhooing about our marks or tuition must sound like so many whispered punch lines when heard by the prisoners up the street.

In September of 1996, while many of us were returning to our studies James Lonnee, 16, was found beaten and unconscious in a segregation cell he shared with Adam Trotter, also 16. Lonnee died the next day. Trotter, now 19, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is serving a five-year sentence.

Over the last few months an inquiry in Hamilton has been attempting to find out why two young offenders with a history of unpredictable and violent behaviour ended up in the same cell.

There are a number of procedures that were not followed by prison guards that could have saved the boy's life including: checking young offenders in secure isolation every 15 minutes, and seeing a medical professional before going into secure isolation. Witnesses testify that Lonnee screamed for a doctor's help.

Three days before his death Lonnee was placed in segregation for his own safety since he didn’t get along with the other offenders. Though another cell was available it was decided that he would share his cell with Trotter.

Irene Dooley, then acting manager of the young offenders' unit, asked Peter Hickes, an anger management councillour to assess if the two could get along. Hickes asked the teens if they got along, both said yes.

The night before his death Lonnee and Trotter reeked havoc in their cell screaming ripping mattresses and flooding the toilet. Keith Wilson a guard at the Detention centre decided it was too dangerous to remove them from the cell at that time since, being night time, there was only a skeleton staff.

So Lonnee was left to sleep overnight in, as Wilson put it, an "unholy mess" of mattress wadding with a wet blanket to cover him. Trotter slept on a bare bunk. Wilson didn't think to offer Lonnee a dry blanket.

The next day instead of being separated the two were placed into "The Hole", a small, dark cell with no bed or running water and only a drain as a toilet.

Randy Simpson, the jail's deputy superintendent at the time says that morning the boys' disturbance was at the top of the agenda and it was decided the boys would be separated. But Dooley, who would be responsible to ensure it happened, left for a Rotary Club luncheon without separating them.

Just before noon Glen Henry was returning from lunch when a nurse asked him to come to the segregation unit to "check on a couple of kids." When they reached Lonnee's cell they could see him lying on the floor with his legs crossed and one arm in the air, he appeared to be trembling.

They discussed whether he was a real seizure and both decided he was faking. Just then they were called to another cell.

It was about 12:20 when staff finally entered the cell, taking Lonnee's beaten body out on a stretcher..

At the time of the beating police wanted to lay criminal charges against three former employees (including Dooley, since fired) but did not proceed because a Crown prosecutor told police there was little prospect of getting a conviction.

The story of James Lonnee is interesting in light of all the disgust over the BC Supreme Court decision that possessing child pornography is not illegal. The newspapers and radio have been filled with people ranting about protecting our children. While I agree with them to a certain extent many of them are the same people calling for stricter punishment of young offenders.

Just as our government says pornographers have no right to create sexually suggestive images of anyone under 18; so would I suggest that our justice system has no right to put anyone under 18 in a locked room with no water toilet or bed.

Which brings us to our last stop -- the gated "community" across the street. But I can see many of you are coming down and anyway this part of the tour is the least exciting. I trust that most of you bright, young things can connect the dots yourself.

As for me, well it looks like Pope John Paul II is not long for this mortal coil. As is any Catholic -- priest or layperson, man or woman-- I'm eligible for the papacy, so I'm off to Rome to begin campaigning.

Have a good evening. Campus Safe Walk has been contacted and a squad of them are on the way to get you home safe and sound.