Justice committee  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.

Justice committee  Our main point of comparison here is the United States. In a number of their jurisdictions they allow for wide-ranging publicity about young people. Again, it satisfies certain public instincts to say that these young people, if we knew who they were, would be more likely to be accountable and less likely to offend, and we could take measures to protect ourselves if we knew they were back in the community.

Justice committee  I think there is some value to changing the definition of violent offence, and Justice Nunn, in his report in Nova Scotia, addressed that issue and did suggest there are cases where a young person might be endangering the public. There was a celebrated case, for example, where a young person was driving a car involved in a high-speed police chase and didn't hit anybody.

Justice committee  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.

Justice committee  Yes. I think there's a lot to be said, from a lay perspective, for wanting to hold young people accountable. The present act talks about accountability and societal values. It's very important that young people know they're being held accountable. Indeed, if anything, I'd like to see more victim involvement in the process so young people can hear from victims what they have done.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I'm pleased to be here. I'm a law professor at Queen's University and a father of four children. For over 30 years I've been involved in doing research around child and youth issues, both for young offenders and for children as victims, and for children as subjects of custody and access disputes.

Justice committee  I was a witness there and actually met the family of the poor woman who was killed. The issue there is as much about the definition of violent offence. This is a place where I support the legislation and perhaps disagree with some of my colleagues here. What happened in Nova Scotia was not just that they stole a car, but that the young person was involved in a car theft and a high-speed police chase.

Justice committee  Charts 1, 2, and 3 are based on Statistics Canada data, yes. Some of it is unpublished data interpreted by myself and particularly by my colleague, Professor Peter Carrington, but it's based on Statistics Canada data, which comes from courts and police. So it should be consistent, yes.

Justice committee  Yes, that's correct. I should say that reported youth crime in Canada as reported by the police peaked in 1992. That's a measure of crime based on what people report to the police, and then the police have a choice either to charge or to divert. The middle line shows the number of cases in which they are charged.

Justice committee  Thank you. I think I heard three questions.

Justice committee  One is, I think, about the issue of detention. The first question you have to ask yourself is, do you intend to increase the number of young people in detention, or some of them, or do you want to decrease it? As I pointed out, we've had a significant increase in detention, not in custody.

Justice committee  I don't think including specific or general deterrents will in fact protect the public. I know there is a lot of research, and my own personal experience would suggest that the problem with young people committing offences is that they are not thinking about the consequences of their act, let alone thinking about the severity of the sentence.

Justice committee  That actually would not be considered deterrence; that would be considered incapacitation, which is a different issue. There is no doubt that rational adults are affected by the length of sentence. If, for example, we want to stop corporate fraud, having longer sentences and having a more effective securities legislation will deter accountants and lawyers and others, but it will not affect the behaviour of younger--

Justice committee  Yes, but could I just say that we also have to be aware when we are incarcerating of whether we are rehabilitating. As is often the case, unfortunately, custody is a place where gangs recruit young people, where young people are not rehabilitated, and they are more likely to reoffend.

Justice committee  Actually I was a witness for a couple of days.