Research shows that the Youth Criminal Justice Act has been highly effective in diverting youth people away from custodial environments, reducing youth crime rates, and reducing violent youth crime. It promotes an emphasis on rehabilitation and reintegration. It fosters the use of extrajudicial tools to hold youth accountable, and increases the chances for youth to become law-abiding, contributing citizens.
We strongly believe that the overall effect of the proposed amendments will be detrimental to these improved outcomes. Our views are in significant agreement with the findings of the consultation process carried out across our country, which were tabled with you on December 9, 2010. The report resulting from that process noted that there were consistent messages from all provinces and territories. Two major conclusions outlined in the report are that there is “little support for changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act at this time”, and that we “need a strong social safety net to support implementation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act”.
We are also concerned about the impact of the proposed amendments on aboriginal youth, who are among the most vulnerable members of Canadian society. On June 23, 2010, we came together as members of council to release a paper entitled “Aboriginal Children and Youth in Canada: Canada Must do Better”, which is one of the documents submitted to you for today's presentation. In that paper, we note that aboriginal youth are grossly overrepresented in the youth criminal justice system beginning at age 12 years.
In Manitoba, for example, aboriginal youth represented 23% of the provincial population aged 12 to 17 in 2006. However, 84% of youth in sentenced custody were aboriginal youth. This pattern is replicated across the country. For aboriginal children and youth in Canada, there is a greater likelihood of involvement in the criminal justice system, including detention in a youth custody facility, than there is for high school graduation.
This is a staggeringly negative outcome, which appears to have increased in some provinces over the past decade, even while youth crime has declined. When policies and changes in criminal law move the system in the direction of more detention, we can only expect that they will have a more immediate negative effect on aboriginal youth than on any other group in Canadian society. And that is unacceptable.