Youth And The Criminal Law In Canada

Implementing and Working with the Youth Criminal Justice Act across Canada provides the first comprehensive, province-by-province analysis of how each Canadian jurisdiction has implemented the Act in accordance with its own history, traditions, and institutional arrangements.

In the past ten years, much has changed in terms of youth justice policies in Canada as well as in the way Canadian society has evolved. Canada has a new Act governing youth crime, and there are indications that the Act will be revised again to make it "tougher" on youth in conflict with the law, a development reflecting what many scholars are calling the "punitive turn" in youth justice policies in Canada and elsewhere. At the same time, Canadian child poverty rates (which are strongly correlated with criminality) have remained high, despite a commitment, made by governments in 1989 to eradicate the problem by the year 2000. Immigration patterns have changed, and unemployment rates for young Canadians remain almost twice as high as those for adults. In this volume, Youth Criminal Justice Policy in Canada: A Critical Introduction, the author addresses these and other developments in relation to youth crime in Canada from a critical criminological perspective.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act replaces the Young Offenders Act to provide the legislative framework for a fairer & more effective youth justice system.

This timely book, by one of Canada's leading scholars of youth justice, is a succinct and authoritative introduction to an important, controversial area of Canadian law. Our response to young persons who violate criminal law is profoundly significant not simply for those who are directly involved in the process, but also for society as a whole.

The authors describe what is known about Canadian youth crime, and the operation of the youth justice system in the context of the changes in the law that are taking place. The authors posit that the youth justice system has a relatively modest impact on youth crime. In order to respond intelligently to it and to evaluate the response of the state, two sets of information must be understood. First, society must try to understand what 'youth crime' looks like in Canada. Second, in order to understand 1 and evaluate 1 the changes that are being made in youth justice legislation in Canada, a clear understanding of the manner in which the youth justice system currently operates is necessary.