Measuring Youth Crime in Canada- Lecture 2 PDF

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Lecture number two. ...

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Lecture 2 Measuring Youth Crime in Canada Definitions The traditional focus of criminologists has been on the legal rather than the psychological or sociological definitions of youth crime. Youth Criminal Justice Act Definition: defines as young person as “A person who is or, in the absence to the contrary, appears to be 12 years or older, but less than 18, and if the context requires, includes any person who is charged under this Act as having committed an offence while they were a young person or who is found guilty under the act.”

Limitations of Purely Legal Definition: - Theoretical insight: exclusion of victimless crime - Demographic: age distribution can affect rates - Case filtration and dismissal: often eliminated - Policy and Admin variation: interpretation of the YCJA varies among and within provinces. - Methods of collection statistics: Statistics Canada does not enumerate all crimes; stats are with an agenda - Reporting rates: related to societies attitude - Public perception: affects the way legislation is used - Technologies: complex crimes can go undetected

State Intervention Growth of state intervention in the late 19th century. - Urbanization and industrialization - Platt (1977): The “child-saving” movement in USA and Canada - Universal public education and compulsory schooling - Growing concern with “addressing the root causes of delinquent behaviour”. Youth Crime Trends: 20th Century - Early 20th century marked a new era in youth crime with the introduction of youth courts and a more efficient system of responding to juvenile crime. Changing Patterns of Juvenile Delinquency under the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA) 1900-1960’s: - The increase in recorded juvenile delinquency in the first half of the 20th century reflected the shift in formal attention to youth offenders - The perceived growth of youth crime in the 70’s and 80’s lead first to the Young Offenders Act and then to the Youth Criminal Justice Act

Lecture 2

Data Collection in Canada

How official data is collected in Canada: - The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, a branch of Statistics Canada, collects offender and offence data from police, courts, and corrections for administrative purposes. - The centre produces regular reports that are available to the public - The most consistent source of measurement - Expressed as: 1) number of youths charged, 2) rate of youth charged/100,000 aged 12-17 years old, and 3) the percent of change int total youth rate between reporting year and previous year.

Youth Offender Demographics: Gender: predominantly male - In 2012/13, 72% of youth court cases involved males, while 21% females. - Males are more likely to be accused of: sexual assault (92%), drug possession (85%), attempted murder (82%), weapon offences (82%). - Highest representation of females involved: prostitution (44%), common assault (36%), and fraud (35%) - It is unclear how much difference is related to reporting patterns, media sensationalism, the “crime funnel” effect, the alleged growth of “girl gangs”, use of extrajudicial measures, and gender convergence. Age: the next most important determinant of youth crime trends and patterns - The rate of persons accused of crime steadily increases from 12-17 (the Peak Age) and then begins to decrease for all offence types. - Those who are younger are more likely to engage in property related crimes. - Older youths are proportionately more likely to commit administrative offences (charges not generally considered to be criminal, such as failure to comply with a disposition-sentencing-).

Crime Severity Index (CS)- uses a weighting system to measure youth offences according to their seriousness. Non-Violent Crime: - Non-violent crime has been decreasing since the 1990’s - Includes all other offences than violent offences - The offences account for the greatest proportion of all youth crime.

Youth Court

Lecture 2 Court Dispositions: - Data from CCJS show a shift towards more guilty verdicts and harsher sentences in the 1990’s. 2004 trends appear to be less punitive. - Secure Custody: general decrease in number of young offenders sentenced to custody since 2004, largely due to the diversion and extrajudicial measures under the YCJA. - Court case contemplation time: taking longer to process despite objectives of the YCJA to administer justice more quickly Transfers to Adult Court- Adult Sentencing - Welfare vs modified justice sentencing - Transfer to adult court under YOA - Current legislation no longer provides for the transfer of youth to adult court (2012)- the focus of YCJA is towards rehabilitation and re-entry. Sebastien’s Law - Bill C-10 included a provision to allow young offenders who commit serious, violent acts or who are serious repeat offenders to be detained during pre-trial detention and to force courts to consider publishing the names of some young offenders.

Surveys Self-Report (SR) Surveys - Social science questionnaire designed to ask respondents to report on their involvement in criminal or delinquent activities. - Aid in uncovering the “dark figure” of crime - Inconsistent methodologies limits abilities to compare/extrapolate data from these sources Victimization and Victimization Surveys - Social science questionnaire designed to measure experience of respondents as victims of crime - Rates have increased since 2000’s - Canadian Urban Victimization Survey: more similar results for males vs females; those aged 15-24 are most likely to be victimized and repeatedly victimized - Sacco and Johnson (1990): importance of school attendance and performance, peer-group, family relations, and mental health. - Juristat reports: young females are more likely to be victims of assault and sexual assault at the hands of friends and aquaintances; 80% of those aged 15-17 did not report incident to the police. - Tanner and Wortley (2002): “code of silence” among youth who refrain reporting to an adult - Matthews (1996): prior victimization may be a key risk factor for criminal activity...