Thank you for the question.
I think there's no doubt that young people in some sense can be and need to be deterred from committing crimes so that if they think they're likely to be caught they will be less likely to commit offences. From a social point of view, the existence of the youth justice system obviously deters young people from committing offences. If they know they're going to be caught, they're less likely to commit offences. The concern is that when you add deterrence as a new factor, when it has not been in the current act, the message to judges is that they should be imposing longer sentences in the hopes of deterring future youth crime. It will affect judicial behaviour, and in particular sentences.
On the other hand, for young people, the possibility that if they get caught and convicted and sentenced and the sentence is going to be six months rather than three months does not affect their behaviour. The reality is that young people who are committing offences, unfortunately, because of their immature state, are not considering the consequences of what the sentence might be.
Similarly, in the United States, they used to think they should have capital punishment for young people, but it was not deterring youth crime. The United States Supreme Court in the case of Roper v. Simmons specifically addressed that kind of issue and said they were not going to have capital punishment for young people, specifically in part because of the fact that the young people were not going to be deterred.
Unfortunately, young people committing offences are not considering the long-term consequences, whether of smoking, of using drugs, or certainly of offending behaviour. Their behaviour can be changed. We can rehabilitate them. But imposing longer sentences will not change their behaviour. It will, however, result in more of them serving longer periods of time in custody.
For some young people, custody is appropriate or even necessary. I'm worried that we're going to be sending the wrong young people into custody for longer periods of time.