Congress 2017
Congress 2017
Exploring Canada’s Evolving Youth Justice System at the Canadian Youth and Justice Congress 2017
I attended the Canadian Youth and Justice Congress 2017 alongside Analytics Branch colleagues Mark Langdon and Jaeho Oh, where we engaged in important conversations about Canada’s evolving youth justice system. Questions included: what is working, and how we can move forward in creative ways with input from attendees such as civil servants, criminal justice practitioners, academics, frontline workers, and volunteers. People traveled to attend this conference from near and far – some from as far away as the U.K. and Australia.
The Congress was enlightening and engaging, with informative presentations on youth justice trends. There were inspiring testimonials from individuals who devote their time to providing opportunities to vulnerable young people. All of the presenters had one thing in common: they aimed to reframe the context of youth justice discussions, moving away from a crime-centric approach to one based in social justice. This means addressing the relationship between crime and social welfare issues such as poverty, marginalization and racism.
The discussions began with an excellent keynote address by Dr. Anthony Doob (Professor Emeritus of Criminology, University of Toronto), who noted that the number of youth charged, brought to court, and sentenced to custody has been decreasing since the introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) in 2003. In fact, the number of youths serving custodial sentences declined by 86% from 1997 to 2015!
The keynote was followed by a presentation by David Mitchell (Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Children and Youth Services) who noted that these trends have enabled a reinvestment into over 400 community-based programs in Ontario. Over the next few days, we heard from individuals involved in programs that provide opportunities for young people to engage in activities such as dance, poetry, film, and skateboarding.
While we left hopeful about the progress that had been made in youth justice over the last few decades, there are issues that must still be addressed. For instance, we discussed racism and the overrepresentation of Indigenous young people in the justice system, along with emerging issues related to child pornography, youth radicalization, and the legalization of cannabis.
Not only did the Congress provide context for understanding youth justice, it also offered some potential avenues for future research. For instance, it highlighted the value of investigating potential data linkages between the youth justice system, the adult justice system, and child welfare services. This could offer some insight as to how these areas overlap and impact each other.
Overall, the Congress was a productive and inspiring experience.
– Diana Grech
Diana Grech is a Senior Research Analyst with the Ministry of the Attorney General’s (MAG) Modernization Division. Prior to working for MAG she completed her PhD at the University of Leeds (UK), where she compared bail decision-making in England and Wales and Canada.