Evidence of meeting #53 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I have seven minutes? I don't have enough questions; I'll share my speaking time with Mr. Dechert.
Ms. McAuley, I have a question for you. You provided us with some documents, and you explained them to us a little earlier before the committee. For example, on page 12, we have a table entitled: "Median number of days served by youth in remand, by selected province and territory". Is it appropriate to tell the people listening that this excludes Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Nunavut? Do you agree that this table, which refers to remand, does not contain any figures for those provinces for 2008-2009? I would even say that you have no figures on remand for the period prior to 2008. Is that true or false?
March 9th, 2011 / 5:05 p.m.
Rebecca Kong Chief, Correctional Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
No, we didn't receive data from those jurisdictions for 2008-09, but we do have data for prior years for these jurisdictions.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
It's different in the table on page 13. We're talking about "Median number of days served by youth in custody, by selected province and territory". This is the most frequent case in Youth Court. As the note states, somewhat as in the previous table, this excludes Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and even the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. So you have no statistics for nearly half of Canada. Not only are you telling us you don't have the figures for 2008-2009, but you also have nothing for the period prior to 2008.
5:05 p.m.
Chief, Correctional Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
No. For the ones that are excluded from this graph, as per the note, we didn't actually get data for them on this particular data point, which is the median number of days served. Some jurisdictions are not able to provide that piece of information. We rely on the information that they collect through their offender management systems.
We would be able to provide historical data for these jurisdictions, if that is requested. I don't have it with me, but we can provide it to the committee.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Ms. McAuley, you speak on behalf of Statistics Canada. You may have heard other people say that the amendments to the act would increase or potentially increase the number of incarcerations. In view of what you've presented to us and of the fact that this excludes Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, how can we make a decision if we have no statistics indicating that there are more or fewer incarcerations or days spent in custody by young offenders? Can you provide that information to us for 2008-2009? You indicated at the bottom of the page that data were unavailable. How can I make a decision? Some people have told us in this committee that we would be increasing the number of incarcerations, while others have told us the contrary. And yet I checked and we don't have complete data for 2008-2009, and you don't have it either for 2006-2007. You don't seem to understand that we need you in order to make a decision, but we have no statistics to assist us. How do we go about finding them? Do you have any documents that would enable us to find them?
5:10 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
We work in collaboration with all of the jurisdictions across Canada in order to provide data to us. We have national data requirements, and we aim for all jurisdictions contributing data to a survey to meet those national data standards.
In some jurisdictions it is simply not possible for them to convert their data into our national data standards at this time. We are working with those jurisdictions to see what would be possible over time.
Ms. Kong may have something she'd like to add at this point.
5:10 p.m.
Chief, Correctional Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I'd like to also clarify that those particular graphs are addressing the question of time spent in remand and time spent in custody, for youth. As I said, that is something that some jurisdictions can't provide to us. If you're looking for information on how many youth are in custody and what the trend is, I would refer you to slide 11, which gives us information on the average daily counts.
We have seen that the average number of youth in sentenced custody on any given day has been declining. We have much better coverage for that information; it's only Nunavut who hasn't been able to provide us data for these years.
That coincides with the information that Ms. McAuley provided on the decrease of cases in youth court, as well as the use of custody. This slide 11 also provides the average daily count of youth in remand, if that's the type of information you're looking for.
5:10 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I will also refer you to the youth court statistics, Juristat, which was provided to you. If you look on page 32, table 8, you can see the percentage of youth cases sentenced to custody since 2002-03. We have that information from the youth court survey going back to 1990.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just quickly, Ms. McAuley, can you tell us the percentage of young people between the ages of 14 and 25 that cohort—if I recall my demography terminology correctly—represents as a percentage of the total population of Canada? How has that been changing over the last 10 or 20 years, and certainly since 1999? I think most of your statistics are presented over that period.
I don't see that anywhere in these statistics.
5:10 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I don't have that information in front of me. I would have to provide that percentage or proportion of the population to the committee afterwards.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Please provide that to us.
If I go back to the book by the demographer from the University of Toronto, David Foot, my understanding is that we may be in that bust period where we have less people in that cohort than we did at an earlier time. To a certain extent that would perhaps explain why we have a declining rate of youth crime.
5:10 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I wouldn't be able to comment on that without the information in front of me.
As we do show the information by rate per hundred thousand population, we could look at the population trends for the 12- to 17-year-olds over time, but we could also look at the number of incidents that have come to the attention of the police for that group.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
I was sort of in the same envelope as Mr. Dechert. This data doesn't provide us any sense of outcomes for the youth involved. It's a statistical overview, and we're all, of course, very interested in outcomes, but that's another story. I just want to comment--and bring it to a very quick conclusion with a comment from you, if you have one--that since 1991, in the last 20 years, there has been this huge drop in the youth court caseload, a material drop in youth court cases and crime. All the data you're showing us shows a material decrease.
We're not sure why. Mr. Dechert says maybe the population in this cohort has dropped, but youth court cases have dropped from 95,000 25 years ago to about 58,000 in 2009. That is about half. I don't think the youth population has been cut in half.
There are a whole lot of people out there doing something right, or something huge is happening in society to get that kind of a trend line. Is there something else that you would be aware of, as statisticians, that could explain to me why that trend line is so precipitously down? We are interested in that.
The bill, in some context, is suggesting we have to focus on some deterrence and denunciation here for youth, when there is no evidence in the statistics that these factors are relevant at all, especially given the fact that the sentencing is down, the crime is down, the number of youth involved in court is down, etc.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I would refer you to slide 2 of the presentation, which looks at youth from 12 to 17 years old accused of police-reported crime by the type of clearance status. You will notice that it shows the rate per 100,000 youth in Canada from 1999 through to 2009. The reason we include a rate is to deal with any variations in the population, whether of those accused or of those who are victims, so you would be looking at a true measure over time of what was happening in terms of police-reported crime in Canada.
What you can see over that trend is that the number of youth who are charged, or for whom charges are recommended, has decreased over that time period while the rate of youth cleared otherwise has actually increased. Again, it is the rate we are showing here.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
I will refer you to slide 3 for that, which breaks down the statistics for 2009. “Youth cleared” is looking at verbal warnings, written cautions, referral to community programs, referral to extrajudicial sanctions programs, and other means. “Other means” would include such things as the complainant declining to lay charges or cases in which the youth may have died or is already incarcerated.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
So just a quick look at this chart 2 might show a slight decrease in crime among youth, if I can put it that way, but the rates of youth crime are not as precipitously down. Am I interpreting this properly, that between youth cleared and youth charged you still have about the same rate throughout the whole period?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
What you are seeing here is the youth accused of a police-reported crime. If you would like to look at the youth police-reported crime rate, I would refer you to slide 4, which looks at the total of the non-violent crime and the violent crime, at the rate per 100,000 youths in Canada over time.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada
What we can say is the youth crime rate over time has been dropping as a result of the changes in the non-violent crime, as seven out of ten crimes of which youth are accused in Canada are non-violent offences.
