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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