Changing youth behaviour through justice education.

• Author: McCoubrey, Sarah
• Position: Feature Report on Youth and the Law

The issue of youth crime arises with predictability during each election campaign or in the wake of high profile incidents. However, between these periods of public attention, there is very little public discussion of strategies for addressing the issue. As with many issues rooted in the complex interplay of poverty, parenting, opportunity, and values, education is the most effective tool to affect permanent, long-term change.

Justice education provides an opportunity to cultivate an understanding of one of our social institutions while also educating young people about the limits of acceptable social behaviour and the consequences for transgressing these boundaries. As a complement to this increased understanding of the players and process of the system, justice education also offers opportunities for young people to put themselves into the system and consider themselves and their families as the beneficiaries of a fair legal regime, building trust that will extend beyond their schooling days.

Currently, many young people learn about our justice system from television. While the school curriculum does include an introduction to the system, this occurs within a social studies curriculum in which the elements of the system are explained and then memorized. There is little room for participation in or questioning of the system that interprets and applies our laws.

Unlike the wealth of portrayals of the American justice system that appear on TV and in the movies, very little information and few representations of the Canadian justice system are available. As a result, many young people believe that Canadian citizens can invoke American constitutional rights. They also frequently assume that Canada uses the American system of elected district attorneys and judges. At first glance, this may appear to be a matter of simply correcting misinformation about the electoral system; however the impact of these misperceptions runs deep.

If one assumes that Canadian police officers, Crown attorneys, and judges work collaboratively, as is depicted on popular American TV programs, suspicion of bias is logical. This breeds distrust when young people come in contact with police officers or are navigating their own minor criminal matters, magnifying the effect of these interactions on their future choices. Justice education initiatives of the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN) are illustrative and highlight the role justice education can play in...