Parents' involvement in the youth justice system: a view from the trenches.

• Author: Peterson-Badali, Michele
• Position: Canada

The centrality of parents (or parent figures) (2) in the lives of children and adolescents is difficult to dispute. Beyond the family context, parents play a significant role in children's interactions with larger social institutions, such as the education and healthcare systems. The importance of parents in their children's lives has also been explicitly acknowledged in youth justice legislation since the time of the Young Offenders Act (YOA 1984). The declaration of principles of the YOA included a general acknowledgement of the responsibility of parents and the interest of families in the freedom and well-being of children (YOA s. 3(1)). As summarized by Varma (2007), specific provisions for parental involvement included notifying parents regarding a youth's arrest or court proceedings (such as bails hearings), establishing a youth's right to request the presence of a parent (or other appropriate adult) during police questioning, taking into account representations made by parents when sentencing decisions are made, and expecting parental supervision of certain bail or probation conditions set by the court. Although this was never explicitly expressed in the legislation, parents' role under the YOA appears to have focused predominantly on support and advocacy for young people as a means of compensating for youths' not having reached full maturity (Tustin 1994). (3)

An even stronger focus on the role of parents is apparent in the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA 2002), which instructs that "parents should be informed of measures or proceedings involving their children and encouraged to support them in addressing their offending behaviour" (s.3(1)(d)(iv); emphasis added). The YCJA preserves the YOA's emphasis on young people's right to due process, as well as the provisions for parental notice, receiving information, and supervision. However, it also expands the scope for parental roles through an increased emphasis on the socialization of youth (Broeking 2008) that envisions parental functions extending beyond advocacy and support to include involvement both in crime prevention and in the "design and implementation of sanctions or consequences" for offending behaviour (Varma 2007: 233). In the same vein, Bala (2003) argues that there is a greater focus on parents' responsibility for youth in the YCJA.

Although the YCJA contains more references to parents than did its predecessor, the legislation contains little discussion of the principles or assumptions underlying parental involvement and provides no specific guidance regarding how parents are to fulfil their roles. Thus, it is left to youth justice personnel to interpret the YCJA's intentions with respect to parents' "place" in the system and to involve parents in accordance with that interpretation. It is, therefore, critical to explore the views of those who work in the youth justice system (e.g., police, defence lawyers, crown counsel, judges, and probation officers--henceforth called youth justice officials (4)), as their perceptions of parental involvement likely shape how they involve parents in youths' interactions with the system. There is a dearth of research in this area.

Findings from the few studies available suggest that most justice officials want parents to be involved in legal proceedings, and officials frequently complain that parents should be more consistently and more actively involved during their child's legal case (Davies and Davidson 2001). Varma (2007) reports that court officials seemed "mindful of parents who were a strong presence in court" (Varma 2007: 252), and interviews with police indicated that officers may be more likely to lay a charge, release on strict conditions, and/or detain the young person when parents show no interest in becoming involved, downplay the gravity of the situation, or deny that their adolescent child could have committed the crime (Carrington and Schulenberg 2003). However, even educated, highly involved, middle-class parents find it difficult to navigate the complexities of their child's youth justice experience (Hillian and Reitsma-Street 2003).

Through semi-structured interviews with youth justice officials, we sought to answer several broad questions in this exploratory study. First, we examined youth justice officials' perceptions of parental involvement in youth justice proceedings: their (the officials') support for young people's due process rights, their views regarding the legislative rationale for parental involvement, their attitudes to system-level policies and practices for involving parents, and their personal beliefs as to the importance of parents' involvement in youths' justice system experiences. Secondly, we examined whether perceptions regarding parental involvement were consistent across the various groups who work in the system. In the absence of a clear and comprehensive message from the legislation regarding parents' intended roles, the messages that youth and parents receive regarding parental involvement are likely to be filtered through the professional lenses of the various groups with which they interact. The effectiveness of parents in assisting youth (either from an advocacy or from a socialization standpoint) may be reduced if youth and parents receive mixed or contradictory messages regarding parents' role in the system. Finally, we explored whether justice officials perceived a shift in parents' roles from the YOA to the YCJA. While support and advocacy for youth is consistent across both acts, if the YCJA is being implemented as intended, one would expect to see a greater emphasis on parents' acting in a socialization capacity, including involvement in extrajudicial measures, in planning and implementation of dispositions, and in supervision of bail and probation conditions.

Method

Participants

Five groups of key informants (N = 41; 23 females and 18 males) who work in the youth justice system--police (n = 10), defence lawyers (n = 8), crown attorneys (n = 7), judges (n = 7), and probation officers (n = 9)--were interviewed individually between June 2005 and September 2006. Police, judges, and probation officers were drawn from three to five different areas (e.g., police divisions, courts, or districts) within Toronto. Defence and crown counsel came from four to five different locations throughout southern and central Ontario (including Toronto). The sample was diverse in age (with 27 of the 41 participants being between the ages of 30 and 49) but homogenous in ethnic background, with 38 participants indicating that they were of white or European background. All participants had completed high school, and 88% had completed a college, university, or graduate degree. Respondents had significant experience in working with youth and parents. They had worked in their current occupation...