V. Preferred Approaches
We are hopeful that the Justice Minister's referral of the Act to the this
Committee for a full-scale and comprehensive review will result in a refocusing
upon the underlying general principles which are fundamental to the Act.
It is our view that much more consideration needs to be devoted to the manner
in which the Young Offenders Act is being translated into policy and realized
in practice, before additional legislative amendments occur. We are also
particularly concerned with the relative lack of attention paid to the needs
of young women within the juvenile justice system.
We believe that this Committee must undertake a thorough examination of
the myriad issues related to the manner in which we address youth crime
in Canada. Accordingly, CAEFS requests that the Standing Committee do that
which we first requested of the Minister of Justice; namely, that you focus
the majority of your time and energy to assuming a more proactive position
of leadership in relation to this as well as other criminal justice matters.
We also urge you to adjust your examination of the YOA so as to more directly
address such interconnected areas as the need for further development of
youth crime prevention initiatives, in addition to strategies for public
and professional legal education with respect to the inability of communities
to achieve safety via legislation alone. We also recommended the extension
of support for the continuation of efforts both within and external to the
Department of Justice, as well as at the provincial level, in order to encourage
adequate resourcing of community-based alternatives for young people.
Research initiatives to support the aforenoted juvenile justice issues must
also be a priority. Accordingly, we are also appealing to this Committee,
as we have to the Department of Justice before you, to consult widely with
voluntary criminal and social justice, especially youth drive, youth-serving
and advocacy organizations. Of special interest for us is the intersection
of the YOA with provincial youth/child-related legislation, and the inter-relationships
of child welfare, education and mental health to early as well as tertiary
crime prevention and youth imprisonment issues.
More community-based dispositional options and fewer custodial beds should
exist throughout the country for all youth, but the need is particularly
acute for young women. CAEFS would support the cessation of federal transfer
of resources to provinces for custody beds, provided there was a corresponding
increase in the transfer of monies for community resource development for
young people. Furthermore, provinces must be encouraged to develop more
gender-specific and culturally appropriate services and programs for young
people. Too frequently, services and programs which do exist are ill-equipped
to deal with such intersecting issues as gender, race, class and sexual
orientation.
Since existing programs and services are inadequate to address the needs
of young people or the protection of society, the first priority must be
to address such service or programming deficits. Otherwise, we will continue
to see further erosion of the principles of the Young Offenders Act and
therefore significant likelihood of a continuation of the bringing of the
administration of justice for young people into disrepute.
Rather than resort to the "adult" criminal justice context at
ever earlier ages, CAEFS supports the development and enhancement of youth-positive
community-based dispositional options, as well as the development of improved
educational and psycho-social programs and services both in community and
institutional settings. CAEFS is particularly concerned about the paucity
of community-based and therapeutic alternatives for young people in general
and young women in particular. We believe that Justice might better address
some of these issues via altering cost-sharing agreements with the provinces,
rather than proposing legislative amendments. Such moves also unfortunately
have the tendency to be simplistic and diminish the pressure to create more
proactive and preventative means of addressing complex issues and concerns.
It should be noted that federally sentenced women have expressed concern
with respect to the transfer of young people into the "adult"
system. Federally sentenced women and men alike, have voiced opposition
to the rendering of young people subject to federal penitentiary sentences.
Lifers in particular, some of whom entered prison during their teens, have
expressed concern that other young people not face a similar fate.
Young people are best served by supportive and proactive interventions,
as opposed to the punitive and reactive types of approaches characterized
by and endemic to criminal justice responses. Indeed, CAEFS supports the
broadest interpretations of crime prevention within the context of socio-economic
and cultural realities. There is sufficient evidence that preventative approaches
to addressing crime are far more cost-effective than current criminal justice
approaches. Accordingly, CAEFS supports the enhancement and development
of high quality supportive services and assistance for children, youth and
adults alike -- from universal and enriched health, child care and educational
opportunities to effective gender, anti-poverty and anti-racism and conflict
resolution programs.
For young women in particular, women-centred approaches are required. Because
of their relatively low numbers in comparison to those of young men in the
youth justice system, their specific needs are often ignored or at best
subsumed by those of young men. While there is greater gender parity in
terms of childhood experiences of abuse, this situation changes drastically
around puberty and certainly into adolescence. Unfortunately, the youth
justice system is rarely equipped with adequate understanding, much less
skills or services to address, the differing gender-based manifestations
of abusive histories.
Much is already known about effective and empowering ways of meeting the
needs of young women. This information, combined with more adequate resourcing
of existing support services and networks, as well as increased funding
to enable and improve the exploration, documentation, and implementation
of additional approaches, would undoubtedly result in ever more effective
interventions, increased prevention and decreased recidivism rates.
CAEFS also recommends that professional training regarding developmental,
educational, as well as psycho-social attributes of young people be prerequisite
to practice for those employed with and in relation to the youth justice
system. An adequate understanding of adolescent development must form just
as integral a component of preparation for employment as does other professional
training.
CAEFS recommends that, rather than continue to focus time, energy and resources
on tinkering with the substantive provisions of the YOA, we would better
meet the needs of Canadians, particularly young people, if the implementation
of the preventative elements were made a government priority. Such a strategy
would certainly be in keeping with the government's commitment to crime
prevention.
YOA Recommendations
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