VI. Conclusion

CAEFS supports federal-provincial cooperative and collaborative work in this are. Cost-sharing for the advancement of relevant health/treatment services are recommended. It is our view that the youth justice system must not remain the catch-all for other systemic inadequacies. 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, such as the ones presented in Bill C-37.

CAEFS supports the broadest interpretations of crime prevention within the context of socio-economic, gender, racial and ethno-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.

Within the criminal justice system more specifically, CAEFS reiterates that we believe much more emphasis needs to be placed upon the creation of community-based alternatives for young people. At the very least, resource allocations to custody and community need to be flipped, one to the other. Additionally, a refocus on the front-end of the process would be useful. Such an orientation would entail increased use of alternative measures programs, reduced caseloads and more holistic probationary practices, vocational and educational foci, as well as increased emphasis on moral, cognitive and personal development generally. Furthermore, all such approaches would require the integration of gender-based and culturally-specific foci.

Providing supportive and empowering services to young people at the time of their first contact with the youth justice system generally reduces the likelihood of future "criminal" involvement. A caveat, of course, is that if such services are present only in the youth justice system, it is likely that more youth will be caught in ever wider, deeper and stickier nets of social control and more young people and youthful behaviour will be criminalized. Accordingly, CAEFS reiterates the need to emphasize the development of preventative and proactive approaches within the child welfare, educational, medical and mental health systems as well as the youth justice systems.

In order to ensure significant short as well as long term change, proactive education and training programs is required for judges, lawyers, probation officers, police officers and all other youth justice personnel. The reorientation of those who work with or are otherwise involved with young people is a prerequisite component to the development of positive and effective change within the youth justice and all other youth-serving systems. In addition to more traditional training approaches, CAEFS encourages the involvement of young people themselves, as well as front line workers in the development of professional and practical training programs as well as in the development of the services and programs, and therefore the "systems" designed to address the needs of youth.

CAEFS: 10/94

YOA Recommendations

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