Canadian justice system finds alternative ways to help its youth

The national number of Canadian youth in custody continues to decrease, according to Statistics Canada data.

According to Anthony Doob et al. in their 2018 Policy Options article titled "Learning from our success in reducing youth imprisonment," the discussion around reevaluating Canada's youth justice legislation has been ongoing since the early 1960s, beginning with Canada's Department of Justice Committee for young offenders. While outlining the history of the Canadian Justice System for young offenders, Doob et al. explain that in addition to official government committees, Canadian officials, such as the Liberals and the Conservatives have also been advocating to keep youth (ages 12 to 17) out of prison since the 1970s. In 1994, the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) was put in place and it was later re-evaluated in 2003. This conversation spanning over four decades and the constant effort to protect Canadian youth could explain Statistics Canada's recent data shows, which shows that approximately 68 per cent less females and 47 per cent less males were incarcerated over the past five years (from 2014 to 2019). 

In "Canada: Repenalization and Youth Offenders' Rights" Russel Smandych addresses the decreased amount of youth in custody in 2003 due to the country's efforts to reduce youth incarceration. Smandych believes that if certain steps/measures are taken, the youth incarceration rate, as well as the repeat offenders rate will continue to decrease. Recent Statistics Canada data supports Smandych's claim. It seems as though Canada did, in fact, implement new ways to help its youth.

 

In Priscilla Hwang's 2017 CBC News article titled "Youth crime frequency drops and severity drops across the North, especially in N.W.T" Iris Hamlyn, executive director of a Yellowknife youth centre, emphasizes the importance of community youth programs, as they steer young people away from crime. Hamlyn is not alone in this sentiment. Public Safety Canada has also noted the significance of youth programs across Canada, and they have implemented crime prevention programs across the country. One such program is partnered with the Canadian Police Association (CPA). This program rewards police officers for finding alternative solutions -- as opposed to custody -- for youth who partake in criminal activity.  

While recent data shows youth incarceration rates have decreased from 2014 to 2019 by 38 per cent, defence lawyers like Peter Harte are still concerned. In Hwang's "Youth crime frequency drops" Harte expresses his concern that the decreased number of youth in custody could simply be due to aging individuals; therefore, those same individuals are now being charged as adults. Harte also explains that youth crime may continue to be an issue in the future, as a result of intergenerational trauma.

"In effect, youth may be carrying their troubles into adult life and adult court, and in turn may pass those problems onto their own children who later enter the system as youth offenders. It could be just a matter of time before the numbers rise again," says Harte.

Harte's concern about intergenerational trauma and crime is valid. A more detailed and up-to-date data report, including whether or not incarcerated youth attended youth crime prevention programs and whether or not incarcerated youth has family within the justice system may shed light on this decreasing, albeit ongoing, problem.

Data Update 3

Chart

Unanswered Question

It would be interesting to find out which race/ethnicity was incarcerated the most in 2014 and compare that data to the most recent year of data available. For instance, of all the males and females ages 12-17, what percentage of them were visible minorities in the 2014 data versus the 2020 or 2021 data. Considering Canada's attempts to reconcile with its Indigenous peoples, for example, it would be interesting to see whether part of this reconciliation is finding alternate reprimands for Indigenous youth. 

How would you get the data?

Under the Access to Information Act, I would file an AOI request since the data I would need is on the national level. The kind of information I would hope to find within this dataset includes similar data to what I already have (region, age, sex, offence type, sentence type, and guilty finding), with the addition of a column for the youth's ethnic background. I wasn't sure if a youth's ethnicity is public information or not given the sensitivity of their age, so I read a bit of the Young Offender's Act, which contains information about youth rights. Nowhere in the Act did I read that the ethnicity of a charged youth is private information, so I think requesting this information would be okay. Alternatively, I could call the Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator for the Correctional Services to find out whether the information I seek is open to the public.

Data Update 2

 Lead: 

The national number of custodial sentences for male and female youth have decreased by more than half over the past five years, according to Statistics Canada data.

Excel Workbook Link and Explanation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PnmKDf9h26pANRdrxQhEQqgL6qp5SpH-/view?usp=sharing

This data slice shows the total number of custodial sentences in Canada for both males and females aged 16-17 from 2014 to 2019. By comparing the most recent year of data to the oldest year of data within this data set, it is clear that custodial sentences have decreased by more than half for both sexes. 

Original Dataset Link:

https://cutt.ly/fzoJABE

News Story/Study Link and Brief Summary: 

https://us.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/29577_03_Muncie_CYJ_Ch_02.pdf

In "Canada: Repenalization and Young Offenders' Rights" Russel Smandych analyzes the way Canadian youth is penalized for violent crime. Smandych wonders whether acts, such as the Youth Criminal Justice Act protects young peoples' rights or whether it is set up to punish, rather than heal and support. This chapter is quite lengthy and technical, and I would not use all of it in my final report. The part that interests me is the section titled, "From blaming to shaming? The restorative pretensions of the YCJA". In this section, Smandych questions "whether Canadians are punishing tougher or smarter" (Smandych, 2006). Perhaps one of the most interesting facts about this chapter is that youth custodial sentences had already decreased back in 2003. Smandych believes that if certain steps/measures are taken, the youth incarceration rate, as well as the repeat offenders rate will continue to decrease. Smandych's work is relevant to my data because perhaps Canada did, in fact, learn to punish its youth in a smarter way since the youth custodial sentences have decreased from 2014 to 2019.

Data Visualization - Update 1

 1. What dataset will you use for your final project?

The dataset I will use for my final project is Youth courts, guilty cases by type of sentence.

(I don't believe the link is working. The CANSIM # is 252-0067)

2. Describe the dataset. What kind of data does it contain?

This dataset is from Statistics Canada. It contains information about youth crimes across Canada over a 5-year period (2014-2019). The dataset includes a total number of guilty cases (cases with one guilty finding and multiple guilty findings), whether the crimes were Criminal Code crimes or federal statutes, what type of sentences were given, and whether crimes were committed by males or females, as well as their ages.   

3. Is there anything about your data that you don't understand? How will you find this out?

One question I have about my data set is how to best format it in Excel, so I will be able to do pivot tables. I have tried to answer this question on my own, and I will watch Chad's lectures again. If I am still confused, I will send Chad an email. Also, because there are so many categories in my data set, I'm wondering whether it is easier to have all my data in one Excel spreadsheet, or should I generate multiple data sheets with only some information on each one? I'm not sure which is the most effective/user friendly format. 

I'm not sure what the Company field is, so I will read the Related Information and the notes that come with this data to learn about it. I'm curious to know what a non-residential program is and what is a Reprimand sentence? I will refer to the notes to answer these questions. I also want to know what it means when a field has "...". Is this unknown information? If so, how will that affect my analysis of the data? Can I omit/delete those fields? Perhaps the notes section will answer this question, too.

4. What are some questions you hope to answer with your data? List at least three.

• Have the youth crime rates across Canada gone up or down within the last five years?
• Are there more Criminal Code crimes or federal statute crimes?
• Which province has the highest youth crime rate?
• What type of crime is most common among males and females?
• What is the most common sentence for male and female youth?

Analysis of Mona Chalabi's "What Do These US Counties Have in Common"

Mona Chalabi's data visualization does a decent job of explaining the data clearly and the colours are not too overwhelming that they distract from the data, itself. Chalabi's visualization, however, suggests a correlation between Black people, Joe Biden, and COVID-19, but there is no data presented within the visualization that proves that people are dying in high numbers in these counties. Since there is no visible data to show this fact, it seems as though the statement "and people there are dying in high numbers due to COVID-19" is simply there to sway the audience with no real proof/data of that fact. Moreover, each County on the visualization has a little red segment of the County, yet the visualization does not explain what that red segment stands for. As a viewer, I am left with questions. Does the red segment represent the Black population of the County, or does it represent the amount of people who voted for Joe Biden? To help make this visualization less confusing, there should be a legend that explains what the red segments represent. There should also be data that supports the statement that Black people dying at high numbers due to COVID-19 in these Counties. Further, the COVID-19 data should be clearly related to the number of Black people voting for Biden. I do not believe that a bar chart or a line chart would be effective for what Chalabi is trying to demonstrate because bar charts and line charts only show two points of data at a time, and Chalabi seems to be trying to show four or perhaps five if you include the red segments (County, number of Black people, Biden votes, COVID-19 data, and red segments). If this were an interactive visualization, perhaps users could hover over the Counties to see the COVID-19 statistics for that region. If users could hover over this visualization, perhaps the correlation between all the information provided would be clearer.