SOCI 321: ch 1-4

CHAPTER 1

• Doli incapax: a legal doctrine meaning “incapable of doing harm” and refers to the English common-law presumption that children aged 7 to 14 years could not be prosecuted for committing criminal offenses, unless the Crown contested this presumption

• Child-saving movement [generally understood in the US]: occurred in the second half of the 19th century in response to growing “concerns with problems caused by industrialization and immigration [and] resulted in child labor laws, compulsory education and the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899, the first statewide court for juveniles.” Sought to stop the courts from processing and incarcerating youth alongside adults

• Welfare model of youth justice: the view that youth delinquency/offending results from social and/or environmental influences. The goal of this model is to provide treatment/programming, instead of punishment, to help youth change their behaviors. Justice system policies and responses under this model emphasize interventions based on the social welfare needs of youth

• Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA) of 1908: Canada’s first juvenile delinquency legislation, enacted in 1908 until 1984

• 3 distinct age-graded levels of criminal accountability: 1) no criminal accountability for youth under a certain legislatively determined age [e.g., under 10 years]; 2) limited criminal accountability for youth who were subject to the jurisdiction of the legislation because they fell within a certain legislatively determined age range [e.g., 10–15 years];  3) full criminal accountability for youth above a certain age [e.g., 16 years]. In other words, all late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century juvenile delinquency legislation came to be formally premised on the principle of diminished moral blameworthiness

• Diminished moral blameworthiness: Canada’s approach to youth justice; assumes that young people have not reached the same level of moral and social development as an adult

• Parens patriae: the legal doctrine that the state must assume the role of a substitute parent in the case of delinquent or dependent children who do not have parents who can adequately control or care for them

• Juvenile delinquency: violations of the law by persons below the community’s legal age of adulthood

• Status offenses: behaviors that are considered delinquent or criminal only because the person who engages in the behavior is not yet an adult (ex: skipping school, underage drinking, etc)

• Disproportionate sentences: sentences that are understood to be either too heavy or lenient compared to the offense itself

• Disparate sentences: different sentences for similar behaviors/actions or offenses (ex: truancy [staying away from school without a good reason] may result in a reform school sentence for one youth but only a warning for another)

• Alternative measures (or diversion): the use of means other than formal criminal justice processing for youth in conflict with the law

• Bifurcated youth justice system: a system in which certain criminal offenses committed by youth— in Canada, select violent Criminal Code offenses— are differentiated from all other Criminal Code offenses committed by youth; a small subset of serious violent cases was differentiated from all others

• Extrajudicial measures (diversion): alternatives to traditional court processes such as programming, which are aimed at reducing the negative effects of deeper justice system processing and involvement. In Canada, diversion refers to front-end (ex: police and Crown) discretionary decisions in how they proceed with youth during either arrest or following criminal charges being laid. The goal is to effectively address a young person’s offense in a way that reduces the negative effects of traditional court processing

• Adolescence: a term popularized by child development expert G. Stanley Hall; refers to the stage of life during which a person progresses, both biologically and emotionally, from being a child to being an adult

• Young Offenders Act (YOA): created in 2003; federal legislation that replaced the Juvenile Delinquents Act

• Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA): federal legislation enacted in 2002 to replace the YOA; came into effect on April 1, 2003

CHAPTER 2

• Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics: (1) the number of youths charged; (2) the rate of youth charged per 100,000 youth aged 12–17; (3) the percentage of change in total youth rate between the reporting year and previous year

• Administrative offenses: Under section 4 of the YCJA, there are provisions under the extrajudicial measures that allow for charges to be laid if the young person fails to comply with his or her disposition or appear before the court. The charge can be initiated by either the police or the Crown; offences against the administration of justice—that is, violations of court-ordered behavioral requirements, such as complying with a curfew, attending mandated programs, and following through on all manner of bail conditions and probation orders

• Disposition: For young offenders→ the equivalent of sentencing for adults. Under the YCJA, a disposition should in theory be more rehabilitative and/or restorative than retributive

• Crime severity index: Developed and introduced by Statistics Canada; the CSI uses a weighting system to measure (youth) offences according to their seriousness. Although introduced in 2009, CSI data are available back to 1998

• Sebastien’s Law: The namesake of the law is 19-year-old Sebastien Lacasse, who was beaten and stabbed to death at a 2004 house party in Quebec by a 17-year-old. The incident prompted the courts to consider adult sentences for youth aged 14 or older found guilty of serious crimes like murder and aggravated assault

• Recidivism: Repetition of criminal and/or delinquent behavior. Recidivism can be measured through official sources or through self-report surveys

• Official data sources: the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, a branch of Statistics Canada, collects offender and offense data from the police, courts, and corrections for administrative purposes. The Centre produces regular reports that are readily available to the public.

• Unofficial sources of data: self-report studies and victimization surveys

• Self-report surveys: A social-science questionnaire survey designed to ask respondents to report on their involvement in criminal or delinquent activities

• Victimization surveys: A social-science questionnaire designed to measure the respondents’ experiences as victims of crime(s)

• Triangulation: A research methods technique that involves using more than one source of criminological data to assess the validity of what is being observed. For example, this technique can combine official crime data with self-report data to obtain a clearer picture of crime or delinquency facts

CHAPTER 3

• Advocacy group: Members of the public with similar beliefs or ideologies who will often work together to advocate for changes to public policy, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). These groups may be formally or informally organized, and have varying levels of resources to assist their causes

• Issues with youth justice legislation at the end of the 1990s: 1) Youth crime rates did not appear to decline under the YOA; 2) The Act was “soft on crime”; 3) The YOA lacked clear principles and guidelines; 4) Public views about young offenders were changing; 5) There were moral panics about youth crime

• Issues with the YOA: 1) the YOA led to an increased use of punishment as a deterrence; 2) judges embraced stricter accountability provisions; 3) The YOA led to decreases in psychiatric/psychological assessment requests; 4) different court levels held different opinions of the Act’s purpose; 5) young people with special needs were incarcerated at a higher rate

• Populism: A political approach appealing to or aiming at what are popular concerns among the public. In the context of criminal justice, this may include tough-on-crime-style legislation, or policy

• Young persons: As defined by the YCJA, someone who is at least 12 years old but younger than 18 at the time an offence is committed

• YCJA’s principles it should uphold: 1) establish a youth criminal justice system that promotes protection of the public and prioritizes rehabilitation; 2) administer justice in ways that resonate with the needs of youth; 3) provide for measures that balance restorative justice with accountability; 4) define special considerations for proceedings against youth

• Youth justice courts: The court in which young people charged with an offence created by Parliament—usually under the Criminal Code or the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act—appear in order to enter a plea and then to have their trial or be sentenced

• Diversion: Responses to transgressions that aim to keep involved parties out of the justice system. Under the YCJA this includes extrajudicial measures and extrajudicial sanctions; keeping young people out of the criminal justice system through extrajudicial measures

• Administration of justice offenses (AOJOs): Offences committed against the justice system’s integrity, generally referring to situations where an individual fails to comply with release conditions, court appearance notices, or probation

• Rehabilitation: An underlying concept in corrections that seeks to repair the harmful attitudes and behaviours of an offender through specialized treatment(s)

• Deterrence: A long-held socio-legal principle of justice by which the sanctions for prohibited acts should be severe enough that they will discourage both the affected individual and the public from committing that act again in the future

• Extrajudicial: actions taken outside of the court

• Extrajudicial sanctions: reserved for young people who “cannot be adequately dealt with by a warning, caution, or referral.”

• Accountability: The YCJA includes provisions intended to ensure meaningful consequences for young people for their actions, with the intent of making clear that they are being held accountable for wrongdoing

• Acute developmental crises: Rapidly appearing moments of diminished mental health associated with the stress of transitioning through stages of life. Youth are particularly prone to these stressors as they attempt to navigate the challenges of young adulthood. While these events are often very distressing, they are generally short term and respond well to treatment

• Diminished moral blameworthiness: Canada’s approach to youth justice assumes that young people have not reached the same level of moral and social development as an adult

• Doli incapax: A legal doctrine that literally translated means “incapable of doing harm” and refers to the English common-law presumption that children aged 7 to 14 years could not be prosecuted for committing criminal offences, unless the Crown contested this presumption

• Jurisprudence: Literally translates as “practical wisdom about the law”; the process by which past legal interpretations of policy or law inform present applications

• Proportionality: An expectation that the severity of sanctions given for an unlawful act aligns with the level of harm that the act inflicts. Justice-involved youth in Canada are subject to a qualified version of proportionality that considers their diminished blameworthiness

• Just deserts: A legal philosophy that prioritizes retributive punishments over deterrence or rehabilitation

• Restorative justice: A process whereby all the parties with a stake in an offence collectively resolve how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future

• Parens patriae: The legal doctrine that the state must assume the role of a substitute parent in the case of delinquent or dependent children who do not have parents who can adequately control or care for them

• Parent: As defined by the YCJA, any person who has a legal duty to provide for a young person, or any person who has custody or control of a young person otherwise

• Sexting: the sending, receiving, and forwarding of sexually explicit images within digital forms of communication

CHAPTER 4

• Pre-charge diversion: The diverting of young people who have come into contact with the police from the formal youth justice system before they are charged with an offence by the police under the Criminal Code

• Net widening: A process whereby, in the attempt to divert individuals away from the criminal justice system, certain policies result instead in a greater number of individuals being formally processed

• Racial profiling: The use of the perceived “race” or ethnicity of a person as a factor in determining police suspicion, rather than that person’s involvement in a specific criminal incident. Victims of racial profiling are often subject to excessive police–citizen contacts, detentions, interrogations, searches, and police brutality

• Pre-trial detention (remand custody): The detention of a young person who has been charged with a Criminal Code offence in a youth custody facility as the youth awaits their trial/next court date

• Bail surety: A promise made by someone connected to the youth to pay the court money if the young person, who was released on bail, fails to return to court on the subsequent court date

• Preliminary inquiry: A hearing that occurs before the case proceeds to trial and in which the judge can determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial

• Pre-sentence report: Report prepared by a probation officer or youth centre counsellor in Quebec; these written documents present the youth court with detailed information on the young person

• Extrajudicial sanctions: Under the YCJA, relatively formal diversion programs that the provincial authorities have authorized

• Dispositions: For young offenders, the equivalent of sentencing for adults. Under the YCJA, a disposition should in theory be more rehabilitative and/or restorative than retributive

• Crossover youth: Young people, also referred to as “dually involved” or “multisystem” youth, who become part of the protective child welfare system because of maltreatment, subsequent removal from the home, and placement in foster care, and who later become involved in the youth justice system

• Criminogenic: Describes situations or environments that cause or exacerbate criminal behaviours. These can even include institutions or programs designed to reduce such behaviours

• Mitigating factors: Information presented to the courts about the facts of the case and the accused that may result in a lesser charge or sentence if the individual is found guilty. Conversely, aggravating factors are facts presented to the court surrounding the offence or offender’s circumstances that may aggravate or increase the severity of the offence

• Neurodiversities: (neurodivergent) A term developed by the sociologist Judy Singer ([Ch. 4] 1999) recognizing that individual’s brains develop uniquely and thus there is no definition or understanding of “normal” or “neurotypical”; neurodivergent came from neurodiversity, and is considered more inclusive, nonjudgmental language. ADHD, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), FASD, and dyslexia are all considered neurodevelopmental and are more commonly referred to as neurodiversities

• NCRMD (not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder)/unfit to stand trial (UST): Based on the Criminal Code’s definition, a mental disorder is viewed as a “disease of the mind.” For an individual to be found NCRMD, there must be a mental abnormality (not caused by voluntary intoxication, temporary mental conditions, or uncontrollable urges) causing significant impairment to preclude the individual’s understanding of their behaviour

• Screening tools: Instruments used to identify youth who have exhibited characteristics associated with delinquency or criminal conduct (including mental health issues) and assist in their referrals to appropriate programs and services

• Risk assessment tools: Instruments used to assess the multitude of risk and protective factors that have been and/or are present in young people’s lives that can influence the likelihood of recidivism. Youth are rated as low, medium, or high risk, and individualized interventions are developed based on these risk assessment outcomes

• Static risk factors: Unchangeable risk factors; they include those traits that may contribute to an offender’s offending and recidivism and cannot be altered through rehabilitation programming

• Dynamic risk factors: Changeable risk factors; they may also contribute to criminal behaviour but can be modified through targeted interventions and/or treatment

• Access period: The designated time frame during which a young person’s youth record is active or disclosable and can be shared among relevant individuals attached to the young person as outlined in the YCJA (e.g., the youth, their parents, defence counsel, Crown counsel, detention centre, or correctional facility director)