Introduction
The Canadian juvenile justice system was established to address the unique needs and circumstances of juveniles who conflict with the law. The purpose of the approach is to hold children accountable for their actions while treating the underlying causes of their abnormal behavior. Various interventions and programs, such as community monitoring, diversion, and jail, serve to achieve this objective.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), implemented in 2003, controls the sentencing of teenage offenders in Canada (Zhang, 2016). The three essential principles of the YCJA that regulate the sentencing of juvenile offenders are rehabilitation, reintegration, and the protection of society. The Act recognizes that, compared to adults, youth have a lesser moral culpability and a greater capacity for reform and rehabilitation. Consequently, adolescent offenders often get shorter sentences than adult offenders. The focus is on providing young offenders with the skills and helps they need to alter their life while also holding them accountable for their behavior. Alternatives to imprisonment in a juvenile detention facility include community monitoring and probation for juvenile offenders.
According to a recent article by Karen Bartko (2022), seven juveniles aged between 14 and 17 were recently charged with second-degree murder for allegedly participating in the killing of a fellow student outside McNally high school in Edmonton. According to reports, the incident occurred following a heated confrontation between two opposing sides. Since the suspects were under 18, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which prohibits publishing their identities, required their anonymity. The six adolescents were jailed for many days during the first week after the assault and were first charged with attempted murder. However, police publicly announced that the charges had been upgraded to second-degree murder. An autopsy confirmed Sahota’s cause of death to be a stab wound to the chest and the manner of death to be murder.
According to Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act, the maximum penalty for young offenders convicted of second-degree murder is up to seven years of four years in prison, with the remainder under supervised community rehabilitation (Wun, 2022). The YCJA also enables the imposition of adult sentences on juvenile offenders in some circumstances, such as when the perpetrator is at least 14 years old, and the crime is particularly heinous or violent. Under certain conditions, the criminal would get an adult prison sentence and serve it in an adult prison. Due to the seriousness of the circumstance, the family of the slain teenager advocated for the case to be considered as an adult.
Whether or not the teens committed the offense, a juvenile law-compliant process must be followed to determine whether or not they should be held guilty. Over the years, incarceration has shown to be an expensive and usually ineffective method of addressing juvenile delinquency, while community-based treatments typically provide a higher possibility of rehabilitation (Pennington, 2019). While there are unquestionably instances in which incarcerating young offenders for accountability and rehabilitation reasons is appropriate, Parliament thought imprisonment was being overused under the YOA, especially for nonviolent criminals. Parliament intended for the YCJA to focus more on community-based remedies to juvenile delinquency and less on the jail, as stated in the YCJA’s Preamble. It also makes clear that responses to crimes committed by children should be proportional to the transgression, even though children have less responsibility than adults. The YCJA provides judges and other decision-makers with a policy framework for dealing with juvenile offenders. The purposes of the juvenile justice system and the YCJA are outlined in the Preamble and accompanying Declaration of Principles.
It is essential to recall that the YCJA emphasizes rehabilitation and reintegration as the major goals of sentencing for juvenile offenders (Wun, 2022). Therefore, even in heinous crimes such as second-degree murder, the punishment will try to provide the offender with the resources and assistance necessary to alter their lives and become law-abiding citizens. Rehabilitation programs are equally as important as discouraging criminal behavior and administering reasonable penalties. In addition, rather than being a distinct objective of the juvenile justice system, the public’s long-term safety is seen as a consequence of rehabilitation and accountability. This order advises the courts to give greater weight to sanctions that help rehabilitate juvenile offenders than to incarceration periods that would only leave them unable. In light of the Edmonton case, if the youths were found guilty, the court would order them to complete a rehabilitation program that would assist them in turning their life around rather than imposing hefty sentences that would have no impact.
A substantial body of criminology research suggests that for some youths, particularly those without a prior history of incarceration, a custodial sentence may increase the risk of recidivism because stigmatization and removal from the community harm a youth’s chances of obtaining an education and a job and increase the likelihood that they will associate with antisocial peers (Mears et al., 2015). In general, a community-based sentence that addresses a young person’s problems is more likely to be rehabilitative than a prison term that removes the young person from his or her community. While some detention institutions offer substantial counseling and rehabilitation programs, many detention centers in Canada lack the resources to effectively address young offenders’ criminogenic needs, and recidivism rates are often high in juvenile incarceration centers.
Sometimes, the punishment will be handed down immediately after guilt has been confirmed. A pre-sentence report [PSR] may be compiled in more serious situations. If a detention period is to be imposed, section 39(6) compels the court to develop and evaluate such a report. Before the sentencing hearing, a medical or mental evaluation may also be conducted. Section 40 of the statute mandates the creation of pre-sentence reports by probation officers, which serve as an essential information resource and sentencing guide for juvenile courts (Bala, 2007). The staff who prepare these reports often have the knowledge and discernment to determine if a teen has repented. Additionally, they are often aware of the available community and correctional services.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s judgment in R v. RWC, which addressed whether to obtain a DNA sample of a juvenile convicted of assault with a weapon, exemplifies the relevance of these reports. ] Therefore, when a PSR is requested, a judge cannot specify that the report excludes risk assessment, but it is ultimately up to the court to choose how to use this information. Rather, “discretion is left to the Provincial Director” to define the report’s contents. The probation officer also has considerable discretion about the report’s structure, which may be a written update or a previously generated report for the juvenile. It is common for a PSR to include information about unpunished criminal behavior (such as charges of school violence). The court may consider such material when determining the appropriate sentence. Nonetheless, if the adolescent challenges the accuracy of the evidence, which might result in a heavier punishment, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
A few locations have devised programs to aid defense lawyers filing arguments on community-based sentencing. The Ministry of Children and Youth Services and Legal Aid Ontario have collaborated to support the Youth Court Action Planning Program pilot project of Operation Springboard in Toronto (Scott, 2021). With the funds and permission to seek out community resources that address the criminogenic variables in a youth’s life, the program’s plans may be presented to the court as a condition of bail or punishment. In R. v. SB, a juvenile court sentencing case, the judge received an “intensive plan” established by Operation Springboard and a pre-sentence report made by a probation officer recommending a prison term. The alternative plan proposed a community-based sentence to address the teen’s educational requirements and learning challenges, as well as therapy and anger management.
References
Bala, N. (2007). Responding to Young Offenders: Diversion, detention & sentencing under Canada’s YCJA. Queen’s Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper, (07–10), 2015-027.
Bartko, K. (2022, April 22). Seven teens charged with 2nd-degree murder after stabbing at McNally high school in Edmonton. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/8779549/mcnally-high-school-stabbing-murder-charges/
Mears, D. P., Cochran, J. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2015). Incarceration heterogeneity and its implications for assessing the effectiveness of imprisonment on recidivism. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 26(7), 691–712.
Pennington, A. L. (2019). Keep Kids Out of Prison: Community-based Alternatives for Nonviolent Juvenile Offenders. Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology, 14(1), 9.
Scott S. (2021). EVALUATION OF LEGAL AID ONTARIO’S YOUTH COURT ACTION PLANNING PILOT PROJECT. Department of Justice / Sélection de la langue – Ministère de la Justice. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/yj-jj/pdf/evaluation.pdf
Zhang, L. (2016). Are youth offenders responsive to changing sanctions? Evidence from the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2003. Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économique, 49(2), 515-554.
Wun, T. W. H. (2022). Teenager or Terrorist?: The Problematic Treatment of Young People Charged with Terrorism Under the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act (Doctoral dissertation).
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