On behalf of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, I would like to thank you for the invitation.
I'd like to start my comments by trying to frame our general understanding of the thrust for the proposed amendments, that is, that the young offender be held accountable, and that of protection of society.
But we would argue that there needs to be a paradigm shift in applying these principles as required, as the amendments proposed will have little effect on the ground, either to hold youth accountable or to make us safer from crime, and in particular, youth crime.
To accomplish this, Canada and the provinces need to start with an accurate evidence-based view of youth crime. What does youth crime look like nationally? Where is crime most likely to occur and by whom? More importantly, what does it look like locally? How does the public experience crime? And what does it look like for the victims, the victims' families, the young offender, and the young offender's family?
A second important element to engage in the conversation for youth accountability and public safety is that youth crime is not the exclusive property of the justice or the correctional systems, that youth crime is not simply a criminalized, individualized youth problem, that punishment is not equivalent to safer communities, and that incarceration or other punishment is not the primary mitigating arbiter of safer communities. Being “tough on crime” may be desirable in some quarters. I haven't heard an argument that we should be weak on crime, and I don't know why one would take such a stand. I think this is a false choice that is presented.
We need to explore what works rather than how much harm we can impose on a young offender. We are challenged to meet the needs of Canadian society, those of our communities, and those of our children and youth, to prevent crime, and to intervene after it occurs, all the while meeting the needs of the young offenders and their victims. The shift here is to move toward the more effective paradigm: that these needs of Canadians, our communities, the victims, and the young offenders are not mutually exclusive. They are woven together in complex social, economic, cultural, and psychological ways, and they should not be isolated in silos as if they occur or can be understood independently.
We cannot define youth as criminals if we wish them to behave differently. Youth are not responsible for the creation of crime. Adults are. Why do we look to the individual young person with threats of retribution and threats of punishment and then expect a self-confident, healthy individual to emerge? We need to ask what we must change in the lives of youth to prevent crime before it occurs, what needs to change after a youth commits a crime, and what is the role of suppression for future crime behaviours.
The proposed amendments ask, how do we denounce and deter? A paradigm shift would ask how to effectively change youth crime behaviour through an internalized sense of accountability by rebuilding a sense of self.
A proposed amendment asks how to increase pre-trial detention to keep youth off the street. A paradigm shift would ask what youth are doing on the street, why they are not in school, and how we can better understand youth crime behaviours.
A proposed amendment asks how to redefine violence. A paradigm shift would ask how to understand the trauma that youth experience when their behaviours lead to violence.
A proposed amendment asks how a youth can be shamed: naming the youth who is convicted of a serious crime. A paradigm shift would ask how a youth who commits a violent act can be less vulnerable to future violent behaviours.
As a final comment to shift the paradigm, I would quote Chief Justice Robert Yazzie of the Navajo Nation. He states: What is an offender? It is someone who shows little regard for right relationships. That person has little respect for others. Navajos say of such a person, “He acts as if he has no relatives.” So, what do you do when someone acts as if they have no relatives? You bring in the relatives!
Thank you.