Appendix B: Youth Criminal Justice Act

• Author: Brock Jones/Sarah Leece/Mary Birdsell/Emma Rhodes
• Pages: 417-485

417

Youth Criminal Justice Act

SC 2002, c 1

Assented to 2002-02-19

An Act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and to amend and

repeal other Acts

Preamble

WHEREAS members of society share a responsibility

to address the developmental challenges and the needs

of young persons and to guide them into adulthood;

WHEREAS communities, families, parents and others

concerned with the development of young persons

should, through multi-disciplinary approaches, take

reasonable steps to prevent youth crime by addressing

its underlying causes, to respond to the needs of young

persons, and to provide guidance and support to those

at risk of committing crimes;

WHEREAS information about youth justice, youth

crime and the eectiveness of measures taken to

address youth crime should be publicly available;

WHEREAS Canada is a party to the United Nations

Convention on the Rights of the Child and recognizes

that young persons have rights and freedoms, includ-

ing those stated in the Canadian Charter of Rights

and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights, and

have special guarantees of their rights and

freedoms;

AND WHEREAS Canadian society should have a

youth criminal justice system that commands

respect, takes into account the interests of victims,

fosters responsibility and ensures accountability

through meaningful consequences and eective

rehabilitation and reintegration, and that reserves

its most serious intervention for the most serious

crimes and reduces the over-reliance on incarcera-

tion for non-violent young persons;

NOW, THEREFORE, Her Majesty, by and with the

advice and consent of the Senate and House of

Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

SHORT TITLE

Short title

1 This Act may be cited as the Youth Criminal

Justice Act.

INTERPRETATION

Definitions

2 (1) The definitions in this subsection apply

in this Act.

adult means a person who is neither a young person

nor a child. (adulte)

adult sentence, in the case of a young person who is

found guilty of an oence, means any sentence that

could be imposed on an adult who has been convicted

of the same oence. (peine applicable aux adultes)

Youth Criminal

Justice Act

B

© 2024 Emond Montgomery Publications. All Rights Reserved.

418 Prosecuting and Defending Youth Criminal Justice Cases

Attorney General means the Attorney General as

defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code, read as if

the reference in that definition to “proceedings”

were a reference to “proceedings or extrajudicial

measures”, and includes an agent or delegate of the

Attorney General. (procureur général)

child means a person who is or, in the absence of

evidence to the contrary, appears to be less than

twelve years old. (enfant)

conference means a group of persons who are con-

vened to give advice in accordance with section 19.

(groupe consultatif)

confirmed delivery service means certified or regis-

tered mail or any other method of service that pro-

vides proof of delivery. (service de messagerie)

custodial portion, with respect to a youth sentence

imposed on a young person under paragraph

42(2)(n), (o), (q) or (r), means the period of time, or

the portion of the young person’s youth sentence,

that must be served in custody before he or she begins

to serve the remainder under supervision in the

community subject to conditions under paragraph

42(2)(n) or under conditional supervision under

paragraph 42(2)(o), (q) or (r). (période de garde)

disclosure means the communication of information

other than by way of publication. (communication)

extrajudicial measures means measures other than

judicial proceedings under this Act used to deal with

a young person alleged to have committed an oence

and includes extrajudicial sanctions. (mesures

extrajudiciaires)

extrajudicial sanction means a sanction that is part

of a program referred to in section 10. (sanction

extrajudiciaire)

oence means an oence created by an Act of Parlia-

ment or by any regulation, rule, order, by-law or

ordinance made under an Act of Parliament other

than a law of the Legislature of Yukon, of the

Northwest Territories or for Nunavut. (infraction)

parent includes, in respect of a young person, any

person who is under a legal duty to provide for the

young person or any person who has, in law or in

fact, the custody or control of the young person, but

does not include a person who has the custody or

control of the young person by reason only of pro-

ceedings under this Act. (père ou mère ou père et mère)

pre-sentence report means a report on the personal

and family history and present environment of a

young person made in accordance with section 40.

(rapport prédécisionnel)

presumptive oence [Repealed, 2012, c. 1, s. 167]

provincial director means a person, a group or class

of persons or a body appointed or designated by or

under an Act of the legislature of a province or by

the lieutenant governor in council of a province or

his or her delegate to perform in that province, either

generally or in a specific case, any of the duties or

functions of a provincial director under this Act.

(directeur provincial ou directeur)

publication means the communication of informa-

tion by making it known or accessible to the general

public through any means, including print, radio or

television broadcast, telecommunication or elec-

tronic means. (publication)

record includes any thing containing information,

regardless of its physical form or characteristics,

including microform, sound recording, videotape,

machine-readable record, and any copy of any of

those things, that is created or kept for the purposes

of this Act or for the investigation of an oence that

is or could be prosecuted under this Act. (dossier)

review board means a review board referred to in

subsection 87(2). (commission d’examen)

serious oence means an indictable oence under

an Act of Parliament for which the maximum pun-

ishment is imprisonment for five years or more.

(infraction grave)

serious violent oence means an oence under one

of the following provisions of the Criminal Code:

(a) section 231 or 235 (first degree murder or

second degree murder);

(b) section 239 (attempt to commit murder);

(c) section 232, 234 or 236 (manslaughter); or

(d) section 273 (aggravated sexual assault).

(infraction grave avec violence)

violent oence means

(a) an oence committed by a young person that

includes as an element the causing of bodily harm;

(b) an attempt or a threat to commit an oence

referred to in paragraph (a); or

(c) an oence in the commission of which a

young person endangers the life or safety of another

person by creating a substantial likelihood of causing

bodily harm. (infraction avec violence)

young person means a person who is or, in the absence

of evidence to the contrary, appears to be twelve years

old or older, but less than eighteen years old and, if the

context requires, includes any person who is charged

under this Act with having committed an oence while

he or she was a young person or who is found guilty

of an oence under this Act. (adolescent)

© 2024 Emond Montgomery Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Appendix B Youth Criminal Justice Act 419

youth custody facility means a facility designated

under subsection 85(2) for the placement of young

persons and, if so designated, includes a facility for

the secure restraint of young persons, a community

residential centre, a group home, a child care institu-

tion and a forest or wilderness camp. (lieu de garde)

youth justice court means a youth justice court

referred to in section 13. (tribunal pour adolescents)

youth justice court judge means a youth justice court

judge referred to in section 13. (juge du tribunal pour

adolescents)

youth sentence means a sentence imposed under

section 42, 51 or 59 or any of sections 94 to 96 and

includes a confirmation or a variation of that sen-

tence. (peine spécifique)

youth worker means any person appointed or desig-

nated, whether by title of youth worker or probation

ocer or by any other title, by or under an Act of the

legislature of a province or by the lieutenant governor

in council of a province or his or her delegate to

perform in that province, either generally or in a

specific case, any of the duties or functions of a youth

worker under this Act. (délégué à la jeunesse)

Words and expressions

(2) Unless otherwise provided, words and

expressions used in this Act have the same meaning

as in the Criminal Code.

Descriptive cross-references

(3) If, in any provision of this Act, a reference

to another provision of this Act or a provision of any

other Act is followed by words in parentheses that

are or purport to be descriptive of the subject-matter

of the provision referred to, those words form no

part of the provision in which they occur but are

inserted for convenience of reference only.

, c. , s. , c. , s. ; , c. , s. ; , c. ,

s. .

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLE

Policy for Canada with respect to young

persons

3 (1) The following principles apply in this Act:

(a) the youth criminal justice system is

intended to protect the public by

(i) holding young persons accountable

through measures that are proportionate to

the seriousness of the oence and the degree

of responsibility of the young person,

(ii) promoting the rehabilitation and

reintegration of young persons who have

committed oences, and

(iii) supporting the prevention of crime

by referring young persons to programs or

agencies in the community to address the

circumstances underlying their oending

behaviour;

(b) the criminal justice system for young

persons must be separate from that of adults,

must be based on the principle of diminished

moral blameworthiness or culpability and must

emphasize the following:

(i) rehabilitation and reintegration,

(ii) fair and proportionate account-

ability that is consistent with the greater

dependency of young persons and their

reduced level of maturity,

(iii) enhanced procedural protection to

ensure that young persons are treated fairly

and that their rights, including their right to

privacy, are protected,

(iv) timely intervention that reinforces

the link between the oending behaviour and

its consequences, and

(v) the promptness and speed with

which persons responsible for enforcing this

Act must act, given young persons’ percep-

tion of time;

(c) within the limits of fair and proportion-

ate accountability, the measures taken against

young persons who commit oences should

(i) reinforce respect for societal values,

(ii) encourage the repair of harm done

to victims and the community,

(iii) be meaningful for the individual

young person given his or her needs and level

of development and, where appropriate,

involve the parents, the extended family, the

community and social or other agencies in

the young person’s rehabilitation and rein-

tegration, and

(iv) respect gender, ethnic, cultural and

linguistic dierences and respond to the

needs of aboriginal young persons and of

young persons with special requirements; and

(d) special considerations apply in respect

of proceedings against young persons and, in

particular,

(i) young persons have rights and

freedoms in their own right, such as a right

to be heard in the course of and to participate

in the processes, other than the decision to

prosecute, that lead to decisions that aect

them, and young persons have special

guarantees of their rights and freedoms,

© 2024 Emond Montgomery Publications. All Rights Reserved.