CRJS Exam #6 PDF

Unit #6 Key Terms & Concepts Cycle of violence The theory that when children witness or experience violence, they are more likely to experience or initiate violence as they get older. (p. 140) Equality A liberal-based philosophy or belief that all is, or should be, the same. (p. 387) Ethnicity A per...

Unit #6 Key Terms & Concepts Cycle of violence The theory that when children witness or experience violence, they are more likely to experience or initiate violence as they get older. (p. 140) Equality A liberal-based philosophy or belief that all is, or should be, the same. (p. 387) Ethnicity A person’s group of origin, where origin is usually thought of in terms of ancestral locations and/or elements of culture (e.g., language, style of dress, behavioural patterns, social customs). (p. 120) Ethnographic method A research method that involves richly detailed descriptions and classifications of a group of people or behaviours. (p. 119) Eurocentric Beliefs, attitudes, theories, philosophies, and practices that are specific to European experience, thinking, and worldviews. (p. 387) First Nations Compared with the term Aboriginal, the term First Nations has clear, political connotations because it defined a group in historically specific terms. It means the first people who were a nation (i.e., a people with legal and political standing). (p. 126) Gender The socially constructed aspects of a person’s biological sex. (p. 131) Gender-responsive programming Refers to programs based on a feminist model of empowerment rather than crime-prevention risk assessment tools, and that focus on oppressive societal structures and the needs of girls rather than individual criminogenic factors. (p. 406) Healing principle Healing of justice based on the philosophy that crime is an injury requiring the healing of severed relations among the offender, the victim, their families, and the community. (p. 387) Longitudinal research A research method in which data on a group of people are collected over a number of periods, rather than at only one point in their lives. (p. 119) Minorities Groups of people who do not form the political, social, and/or cultural majority. (p. 387) Monolithic A single, uniform, undifferentiated idea or structure. (p. 387) Overrepresentation Comparing the proportion of Aboriginal youtube admitted with their proportion of the population, it is found that Aboriginal youth are overrepresented in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Northwest Territories. Polyvictimization Refers to children who have experienced a number of victimization and who exhibit traumatic symptomatology. (p.141) Race A socially constructed category based on beliefs about biological differences between groups of people that have no basis in scientific evidence. (p. 120) Racialize A concept that allows an understanding of racism that goes beyond overt expressions and discriminatory actions of individuals, referring more to underlying assumptions in discourse and practice. (119, 426) Remedial solutions Programs designed to help overcome a weakness as opposed to correct a problem. (p. 140) Reverse discrimination Occurs when policies designed to end discrimination against one group, inadvertently create discrimination against another group. (p. 387) Sentencing circle Often used in Aboriginal communities; judges sit with community members to decide on appropriate sentences for individual cases. (p. 136) Social Injustice A situation in which groups of people are disadvantaged relative to others because of societal laws, policies, or practices. (p, 387) Socioeconomic status Similar to social class, but specifically refers to a person’s social standing or position in terms of education, occupation, and income. (p. 120). Study Questions Explain what overrepresentation in the criminal justice system means. - Overrepresentation occurs when we see more members of a particular group enmeshed in the criminal justice system than one would expect based on their percentage of the population. Overrepresentation can be considered by comparing the proportion of Aboriginal youth admitted with their proportion of the population; Aboriginal youth are most overrepresented in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Northwest Territories. The only province where Aboriginal youth are not overrepresented in correctional admissions is Newfoundland and Labrador. Overuse of custody takes four forms: (1) Aboriginal youth are disproportionately held in remand, (2) disproportionately sentenced to custody, (3) their custody sentences are longer, and (4) they are disproportionately held in secure custody. High rates of pretrial detention are due in part to the criteria used by judges in determining whether to grant bail. These criteria include whether the youth has a job or is going to school, has family stability, and has parent(s) or guardians who are employed. Also of concern is whether drug or alcohol problems have been experienced by the youth or their family. Viewing statistics on these criteria suggest that Aboriginal youth will be disadvantaged in the application of bail criteria. YCJA provisions for intensive supervision combined with appropriate programming holds the potential for a more appropriate response than a custodial sentence for youth who breach probation, fail to appear in court, escape custody, or run from detention. It also has the potential to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal youth, other visible minority youth, and girls in custody. Understand the racialized and socio-political nature of youth crime and the responses to it. Constitutional and Legislated Rights Protecting girls from victimization on the streets sounds like a worthy goal, but acting on that sympathy raises questions about the constitutional and legislated rights of girls in Canadian society and the YCJA. There are a number of ways in which girls’ rights are violated in justice decision-making processes. The YOA promoted “minimal interference” with the rights and freedoms of youth, thereby implying that probation and custody should be the last options, rather than the first as is the case for many girls in the system. Some probation officers and judges use protection as a justification for infringement of young female offenders’ rights. The emphasis in the YCJA on extrajudicial measures, restrictions on the use of the justice system to address child welfare matters, and restrictions on the use of custody, combined with a stated principle that decision-making should consider gender, has the potential to reduce the overuse of custody (and probation) for girls. - Furthermore, restrictions regarding welfare matters already existed under the YOA and paternalism was used then in decision-making for girls; hence, these attitudes are deeply ingrained in our society. Girls can also be apprehended for their own protection through child welfare legislation and other child-protection laws. All provinces and territories have child and family services legislation, and while such legislation varies considerably in details and procedures, almost all provinces and territories allow police and social workers to apprehend and detain children “in need of protection.” Explain differences in offending between males and females. Overuse of Custody: Reformers, who were aware of injustices perpetrated on girls in Canadian society through criminalization for their poverty and attempts to resist violence in the home and survival on the streets, hailed the YOA as a positive step for girls because it eliminated the “status offence,” however justice professionals found new ways of criminalizing the same girls for the same “offences.” Under the YOA, “slapping a mother,” which under the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA) was “incorrigibility,” became “assault”; struggling with the police to avoid apprehension became “assaulting police officers”; street survival skills became “soliciting for the purposes of prostitution” and “robbing” schoolmates of lunch money. All of these criminal, rather than status, offences brought more girls into the formal justice system, and rates of violent crime, mostly minor, increased for girls both in police statistics and in going to court through the YOA and the YCJA. There are only two offences where girls’ charges consistently outnumber or are about equal to boys’, namely, assaulting a police officer and prostitution. Girls also accounted for an increasing proportion of sentenced admissions to custody. Girls are more likely than boys to be confined for less serious offences and to be confined at younger ages. There is also evidence from the YOA years that girls were more likely than boys to be sentenced to custody for violating release conditions (bail violations and failure to comply) and “other” administrative offences. Describe efforts that have been made to deal with overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. - Overrepresentation factors are directly linked to colonialism and the economic and social marginality of Aboriginal peoples in Canadian society and decision-making based on such criteria constitutes discrimination against Aboriginal youth. In 1996, the Criminal Code was introduced, directing judges to consider alternatives to prison for Aboriginal offenders. This section states that all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders. What is interesting about this section of the Criminal Code is that it applies only to adults. In spite of numerous revisions to the YCJA and specific submissions recommending that such a provision be included in the YCJA, no such clause had happened. This meant that Aboriginal youth would not receive the same standard of fairness from the courts as Aboriginal adults unless they were charged with a serious or presumptive offence and subject to an adult sentence. Describe the unique position of youth in Canadian society, and describe the linkages between youth victimization and offending. Aboriginal Justice and Programs: Aboriginal “justice” now varies across the country and ranges from separate and semi-independent systems of decision-making in reserve communities to specialized programs and services offered in the core areas of major cities. Aboriginal Justice Systems: Elsipogtog was a community in crisis. It was losing its children at a phenomenal rate, if not by suicide, by the significant overrepresentation of its youth in the traditional court system. Rather than blame the system, the children or the community, Elsipogtog took on the commitment to build a system that would provide responsibility for actions and applicable, appropriate consequences—one that was made by the community, for the community and as a result, of the community. The Elsipogtog Restorative Justice Program has developed community-based, culturally appropriate programs that include a pre- and post-charge diversion system, mediation and group conferencing programs, and sentencing circles. This program is designed to allow the community to “decide what [is] best for itself in terms of resolving wrongdoing … by striving to resolve the effects of an offender’s behaviour.” It has accomplished this through developing partnerships with Crown prosecutors, police, judges, and other service providers. For example, the police are encouraged to refer youth to the Elsipogtog diversion program before making decisions on whether to charge. Identify how the correctional system programming has failed—and continues to fail—girls and members of indigenous communities. Inappropriate Programming and Facilities - Once in the system, similar to Aboriginal youth, girls find themselves being processed through a youth justice system that is designed to address the needs of Euro-Canadian boys. As with women in the adult system, girls are considered “too few to count” to warrant facilities and programs that are appropriate for girls. The girls themselves are well aware of this injustice. Women/girls are placed in jail without any choice. They’re forced to be with men/boys. It doesn’t make sense that there's only one system for youth.” Develop a more critical understanding of “what works” in correctional programming. “What Works” Doesn’t Work? - Gender-responsive (GR) programming is difficult to implement in its own right because of the dominance of the “What Works” (WW) approach in the field of programming. The WW model comes from the work started by Canadian psychologists in the late 1980s. This model is evidence-based, and what programs are considered effective is determined by research evaluations of the ability of specific programs to reduce recidivism. Preventing crime or reducing recidivism depends on the ability to “get the right person in the right program.” Hence, the WW approach to programming not only is based on programs to meet youths’ needs, but also relies on assessment tools to identify these needs. The needs themselves have been identified through theory and research that identified the correlates of delinquency (family, school, peers), sometimes referred to as “pathways” to delinquency or factors that put youth “at risk” for delinquency. In this “What Works,” evidence-based model, correlates of delinquency are seen as criminological needs and they are largely accepted as being the same for all youth regardless of race/ethnicity, culture, class, or gender. Other social and psychological needs, things such as food, shelter, and help with mental health and depression, are recognized as general needs, but these are not relevant to crime prevention and, therefore, not the focus of programming. The programs tend to be structured, goal-oriented approaches focused on skills development and rely heavily on cognitive behavioural models. Herein lies the key to understanding why correctional programming has failed girls in particular and perhaps also minority youth. Quite simply, GR programming does not fit well with the dominant WW paradigm, and without a recognition of the lack of fit, attempts at GR programming will be difficult. GR Programming for Girls: GR programming is based not on crime prevention but on a feminist model of empowerment. It thus focuses on oppressive societal structures rather than on individual criminogenic factors. In the GR model, the “risk” focus of WW is problematic because, for the most part, girls are seen as more high need than high risk— delinquent careers are less likely, and they get out of criminal activities sooner than boys. This means that assessment tools for individualized planning need to be based more on the social histories and experiences of girls. Most importantly, GR programming cannot simply adopt programs from the “What Works” list and provide them for groups of girls. The most important component in effective programming for girls, more important than the programs themselves, is program delivery. Any program offered for girls must be “trauma informed” and “relational.” Trauma-informed programs are based on a recognition of the impact of abuse on the lives of girls, and relational approaches recognize that the key to girls’ healthy development is positive interpersonal relations. They propose five essential elements to effective programming for girls: A comprehensive individualized assessment process based on tools appropriate for girls. Build a helping alliance. Girls value emotional exchanges in relationships and because many girls’ issues develop from “disconnections or violations of relationships,” it is critical to allow for relationships to build between girls and with staff. A necessary component of building these alliances is same sex models, for facilities and staff. Use gender-responsive cognitive-behavioural approaches. Girls respond better to safe, intimate, informal conversation that allows an exploration of feelings. These programs need to target girls’ issues: self-debasement, self-blame, excessive concerns about disapproval/acceptance through coping styles that are emotion focused. Promoting healthy connections and outcomes. Programs need to emphasize and promote positive connections in family, school, community, and peers that will surround her with social support. Recognize within differences. The most significant differences that need attending to are cultural background, sexual preference, and mental health disorders. There is a need to treat mental health issues and disorders that can undermine or interfere with girls’ amenability to programming. The two most common are depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. A restorative health model would be a more appropriate response to meet the needs of marginalized girls in Canadian communities than the current restorative justice model, that is, to address these issues outside the justice system. Changing Directions in Correctional Responses for Girls New initiatives for girls are developing and being implemented, ranging from prison and/ or detention design, to community-based programs, to preventive programs aimed at individual girls, to training programs for staff. There are now a few gender-specific programs that address pieces of the problem, some better than others. None do it all, which would entail offering services to meet girls’ needs that “start in the street and end in the job force.” Rather than focusing on individual factors as an asset for community adjustment, it would be more meaningful to assess what factors in the community need adjusting. 1. Gender-Specific Prison/Detention Facilities: Courts will continue to sentence girls to prison terms, so alternative prison models need to be considered. For example, since the mid-1990s, the Department of Youth Services (DYS) in Massachusetts has been housing girls in a 19th-century facility built for boys. Institutional environment were not conducive to such programming—taking a boys’ institution and “painting it pink” did not make the system work better for girls so efforts were being made to reduce the chances of girls harming themselves, by installing sprinklers, coat hooks, air supply and exhaust grills, etc that cannot be used in suicide attempts. Girls will have real glass mirrors in their rooms, but the mirrors will be covered with a plastic substance to make them unbreakable. For personal decorative touches, portions of the rooms’ walls will be treated to allow the girls to tape up personal photos, posters, pictures, and mementos. Recognizing that girls have a greater need for privacy than boys, bathroom areas are designed to maximize privacy and grooming needs, and cameras will not be installed in bathrooms, bedrooms, or classrooms. In an effort to meet girls’ enhanced medical needs because of histories of trauma, body concerns, pregnancy, and birth control issues, the facility design incorporates direct access for the girls to the medical centre in the facility. In an effort to meet the girls’ relational needs, the institution is designed with four “wings” for the girls’ living spaces, rather than large dormitories or “units.” Reformers’ concerns about the increasing number of women being sent to prison by the courts because there were now special facilities with specialized programming seem to have been realized, as rates of imprisonment increased for women after the new prisons were opened. 2. Independent Living: This program is targeted at young women who would otherwise be on the streets or in shelters with their babies. The project is designed to assist young mothers to “organize themselves, learn how to cope with having a baby, and get themselves situated in a community … where they can get involved and make friends and have resources for them and their children. It helps them grow up and learn how to be an adult with a child.” 3. Earlscourt Girls Connection: The Toronto-area program Earlscourt Girls Connection is for families and girls under age 12 who display aggressive or problem behaviour. The program involves 22 sessions of three components: anger-management and skill-building sessions for girls, anger-management and skill-building sessions for parents, and a group for girls and their mothers. The overall orientation of the program is advocacy, tutoring, family counselling, and individual befriending on a case-by-case basis. 4. Mentoring and “Walk and Talk”: As with Aboriginal youth programs, mentoring programs are something to which youth, including girls, respond, particularly when the programs involve matching youth with volunteers who are seen by youth as “someone who cares” rather than “someone who is paid to do a job.” Mentoring is seen as particularly appropriate for girls because it is a “relationally-oriented” program. 5. Participatory Staff Development: Participatory staff development involves gender-sensitive training for staff. This program focuses on the process of developing training programs that are inclusive, and is primarily concerned with the needs of both workers and youth. Informed by theoretical and empirical knowledge about gender, culture, and normative and atypical adolescent behaviour, researchers, line staff, and youth workers work together to develop gender-sensitivity training modules for institutional staff and youth workers. Cultural Rediscovery Programs: Rediscovery camp programs for Aboriginal youth have been developed along the lines of the Outward Bound philosophy, and are intended to reconnect Aboriginal youth with the land and their cultural roots. Sometimes used to introduce youth to traditional hunting and fishing, these programs usually involve the teaching of traditional skills, dances, legends, and songs, as well as the provision of environmental education. Education and Skills Training through Mentoring: Mentoring has shown some success as a programming style for Aboriginal youth, both in institutions and in the community. The core of the work involves assembling volunteers to work as mentors and role models on a one-to-one basis with youth. Community Healing Ross: This program for sex offenders is staffed by a team made up of volunteers from the community and RCMP officers. The process begins with disclosure of the abuse to the community team. Criminal charges are laid, but the offender has the option of participating in the healing program or proceeding with the charge in a court of law. In either case, the charge goes to court. However, if the offender agrees to participate in the healing program, the community team will, at sentencing, present to the judge a report detailing the person’s progress in the healing program. The community team is in principle opposed to recommendations for prison sentences. The program developed out of a desire on the part of the gang members to provide assistance and support for gang members coming out of prison to help them reintegrate into the community. What is of interest in this group is that it is gang members who act as supports, and leaving gang life is not a requirement for involvement in the program—avoiding criminal activity is. The program provides jobs, material assistance, social support, and culturally based counselling and, after four years of operation, is producing “encouraging” results.