In any event, I do want to say that in regard to the deterrence effect, which is a very important issue, in my brief I review some of the literature. There's large literature on the effect of increasing sentences on young people.
Unfortunately, in a logical way, if young people were like adults, it might affect their behaviour. But the whole point is that they're not, and that's why it doesn't, in a nutshell.
I was suggesting at the end of my presentation--I'll just very briefly finish it--that this regime we have will continue to allow for significant judicial discretion. In that sense, I welcome the fact that it doesn't have minimum sentences, and so on, like the adults. I suspect we're going to see more variation by jurisdiction as a result of this legislation. However, we will see increases overall in the use of custody, in particular of pretrial detention and in particular for non-violent offenders. As a result, there will be increased costs and delay without any increase in public safety.
Certainly I hope to be here in four or five years to see the effect of this legislation. I think it would be great if the government's position were correct and we had a safer society as a result of this bill, but I fear, from the research we have--not only in this country but other countries as well--and from the experience of many juvenile justice professionals, professional wisdom is that this is, in significant measure, a step in the wrong direction.
I worry that we're actually going to be living through a fairly expensive social policy experiment. As a sort of researcher, I'll be here to see. Maybe the government is right, but I have serious doubts that it is.
Thank you.