Canadian Youth Crime in Context

• Author: Sanjeev Anand and Nicholas Bala
• Pages: 553-575

553

A. APPROACHES TO YOUTH JUSTICE:

CANADA IN AN INTERNATIONAL

CONTEXT

Concerns about adolescent irresponsibility, rebellion, and offending

date back through history to Roman times and are common in all mod-

ern societies.1Patterns of offending, however, are not the same in all

societies. While some level of youthful deviance is an inevitable part of

the adolescent stage of development, a host of complex social, econom-

ic, political, cultural, and legal factors interact to influence the nature

and extent of youthful offending. Canada is currently going through a

period of rapid and profound social change, which is influencing ado-

lescent behaviour as well as societal perceptions of and reactions to

that behaviour. Canada has a serious youth crime problem, but con-

trary to the perceptions of many members of the public, it is not a prob-

lem that is spiralling out of control. While the reported number of

cases in youth court increased substantially in the decade or so after

CANADIAN YOUTH

CRIME IN CONTEXT

by Sanjeev Anand and Nicholas Bala

chapter 10

1 K. Onstad, “What are we Afraid of? The Myth of Youth Crime” (1997) 112:2

Saturday Night 46. See also B. Schissel, Social Dimensions of Youth Justice

(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993) at 10.

the Young Offenders Act came into force in 1984,2official reports of

youth crime seemed to fall slowly fall or at least stabilize in the 1990s.

Further, there is still controversy over whether the increase in juvenile

crime reports in the late 1980s reflected a change in youth behaviour

or police charging practices. It is clear that in the 1990s there was a

dramatic increase in media coverage of youth crime in Canada, and

politicians gave unprecedented attention to the issue of youth offend-

ing and to public demands for tougher laws for young offenders.

Canada has higher rates of youthful violence than many

Commonwealth and European countries but also has a much lower

rate of serious youth violence than does the United States, especially if

the comparison focuses on youth homicide rates. Canada has also

come to rely on a formal youth justice system response and youth cus-

tody to a greater extent than other countries. This type of response is

an expensive and often ineffective way to combat youth crime; its

inability to reduce levels of offending seems to create demands for ever

more punitive responses, while its expense creates a growing justice-

corrections industry that can lobby for ever more resources. While the

youth justice and corrections systems have an important role in

responding to crimes that have occurred, they play only a small part in

making Canada a safer nation.

B. CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

This book has examined the manner in which youths who have com-

mitted offences, or who are suspected of having committed offences, are

dealt with under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.3Although those youths

old enough to be brought within the ambit of the Act can often be

directed away from further offending if there are appropriate interven-

tions and sufficient resources directed toward them, the most effective

youth crime prevention strategies target younger children and their

554 Youth Criminal Justice law

2Young Offenders Act, R.S.C 1985, c. Y-1,enacted as S.C. 1980–81–82–83, c. 110.

The Act was also amended in 1985 through An Act to amend the Young Offenders

Act, the Criminal Code, the Penitentiary Act, and the Prisons and Reformatories Act,

R.S.C. 1985 (2d Supp.), c. 24, in force September 1, 1986 and November 1,

1986, and in 1995 through An Act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the

Criminal Code, S.C. 1995, c. 19.

3Youth Criminal Justice Act, S.C. 2002, c. 1 (royal assent February 19, 2002, to

come into force April 1, 2003), often referred to in this book as the YCJA.