Youth Justice and Youth Crime Introduction

Week 3: Introduction

• Midterm questions will be short answer and one essay question with choices.
• Class meets from 10 AM to 12 PM, not the full three hours.

Youth Justice and Youth Crime

• Youth offenders can be smart when committing crimes, especially serious ones.
• PC Styles was killed by a 15-year-old driving a parent's car.
• The teen accelerated when Styles reached in and eventually crashed the vehicle.
• Differentiating youth crime from youth justice involves:
  • Youth crime in communities
  • The youth justice system's response to apprehended youth
  • The causes of youth crime
• A key challenge is differentiating youth crime from youth justice.
• Course questions include:
  • What does 'the invention of adolescence' mean?
  • How depictions of young people influence solutions.
  • What should the goals of the youth justice system be?
  • The need for a separate system for young people is questioned.
• The desire is to divert (separate youth offenders from adult offenders) to prevent exposure to harsh realities.
• The need for intervention is also wanted, as young people are often more likely to be changed.
• In this course, youth will range from ages 12-17.
• Defining gang involvement is difficult because youth hanging out together are not necessarily in a gang.
• How do we oscillate/move between a ‘fear of youth' and a ‘fear for youth'?
• Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2001 is where Youth Justice is headed

Studying Crime

• Official statistics are used.
• Objectivist/Legalistic approaches narrow focus, aiding in what we can see/ask
• These approaches give us a picture and can help us understand some basic characteristics.
• Crime Severity Index (CSI) is standardized to a base of 100 in 2006.
• CSI allows for comparisons across time/space.
• Juristat is useful for research papers and other assignments

Media and Crime

• Drift theory says young people learn deviant justifications for criminality.
• Most young people age out of crime naturally as they grow older.
• Young people are more likely to engage in deviant acts when unsupervised.
• School is the safest environment for young people.
• Young people more likely to be involved with other people/in groups, but that does NOT mean it's always gang-related
• A provincial variation of YCJ exists
• Recidivism: the more young people continue to offend, the more likely they are to offend forever
• There is no difference between first-time offenders and recidivists
• First offenders generally commit minor crimes (assault level 1, theft under $5000, possession of stolen property, mischief to property, etc.)
• Self-report surveys are different from official metrics.
• Labeling theory focuses on the enforcers.
• Young people are more likely to be victimized and engage in crimes.
• Police-reported youth crime in Canada (2019 & 2020):
  • Mostly non-serious, property crimes
  • Violent crime made up 46% of all cases in 2020 and 42% of all cases in 2019
• Most violent crimes are non-serious level 1:
  • 71% of all assaults
  • 97% of sexual assaults
• Level 2 is with a weapon; level 3 is aggravated.
• Dealing with small numbers for homicides
  • [n = 45 or 0.083% of cases]
• Selected Crime Rates per 100,000 young people
  • Assault Level 1 / Mischief - the largest number of youth coming before the court
  • Administration of Justice Violations are also another huge one
  • The lowest is homicide+attempted murder (the serious crimes)
• Crimes exhibit an aging out effect and geographic variation.
• Recidivism mirrors first-time offenders and not likely to be serious.
• Schools are safe places, but crimes are more likely to happen during the afterschool period.
• Offending in groups is most serious.

Moral Panics: Thinking about Social Reactions

• Societal anxiety defines moral panic more specifically than generalized anxiety.
• Moral panics often involve a perceived threat, labeled with stylized/stereotyped depictions.
• Moral entrepreneurs diagnose issues and propose solutions.
• Stanley Cohen first talked about moral panics
• Moral entrepreneurs (Stanley Cohen) suggest and diagnose the issue.
• Anxiety is more than fear of crime or young people, specifically wilding.
• Media isn't homogenous, there is no concerted effort and aspects can be important emotionally
• An example of failed moral panic is the concern about ecstasy / young people going to raves
• Class, gender, and race play roles in social reaction research, include:
  • Mods/rockers of Cohen's research.
  • Sub-culture theory sees deviance as a collective rather than an individual response.
  • A.K. Cohen: subcultural deviance stems from status frustration and takes a non-utilitarian form.
  • ‘Nasty Girl’: murder of Reena Virk (BC) related to moral panic.
  • War on Drugs
• Were young people rendered were punishable due to the YCJA?
• Hansard (Debates) are transcripts of chamber proceedings named after the Hansard family (printed Britain's parliamentary debates from 1812 to 1892).

Introduction to youth justice and youth crime, differentiating between the two concepts. Exploration into the causes of youth crime and the youth justice system's response. Discussing the goals of the youth justice system and the complexities of handling young offenders.